


Blood in the Inkwell

by Vera (Vera_DragonMuse)



Category: The Hobbit (Jackson Movies), The Hobbit - All Media Types
Genre: Battle of Five Armies, Canonical Character Death, M/M, Unrequited Love
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-12-24
Updated: 2015-01-06
Packaged: 2018-03-03 04:35:40
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 4
Words: 24,994
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2838134
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Vera_DragonMuse/pseuds/Vera
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p><i>If one is merely kind, sturdy and loyal, they are lost to the passage of time. The name of Thorin Oakenshield will ring through our histories as clear as a struck bell. His sister-son Kili will be remembered in folk tales as the laughing prince, who dared to love an immortal. </i><br/> <br/><i>But what of Thorin’s other sister-son? What of Fili? Is his name destined to be lost for the very same reasons that it should always be remembered? I ask, so that I can answer ‘No’. </i></p><p>-Page 1, Line 1-15<br/>Lost Pages of the Annals of Erebor<br/>Done in the Hand of Ori, Son of Ofrai.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Childhood's End

No one spoke of Fili and it was driving Ori to the edge of his wits. They spoke of Thorin as they should with all the awe and fear one reserved for a god. Kili was always on their lips, placed firmly in the crook of their sad smiles. 

But no one spoke of Fili. It was as if the Crowned Prince of Erebor had never been. Oh, they might say ‘The line of Durin fell’ or ‘Gone are the Princes’ or any other lip service, but the shape of Fili’s name rarely forms into the air as solid and sturdy as he had been in life. 

So Ori held the memory of his Prince, a bright torch in the darkness of the days after the Battle. He should have spoken up, but it had been Fili who made way for Ori to speak. In his absence, the words shriveled and died on his tongue. Once more, Ori found he could only set words to paper instead of fishing them from his belly to put into his mouth. 

“You say such pretty things,” Fili had said to him once over too many pints of ale. “Keeping them to yourself is just greedy.” 

“Don’t be ridiculous. You know what pretty words are worth to us.” 

“Not everything must be a gold coin,” Fili fished a brass one from his own pocket and handed it to the bartender. 

That had been many years ago. Before adventure, before fear. When Ori had been an unusually small child, just easing his grip from his mother’s skirts. He was late to speak, preferring to enjoy the silences that his brothers constantly clamored to fill. Often, he would retreat with a book under the kitchen table. There he could watch the world bustle by and leave him to his own devices. 

“Come now,” his mother coaxed, on a spring morning. The kitchen had been unusually busy, so he wasn’t surprised when she told him, “We have visitors.” 

He shook his head and refused to be drawn out. 

“Stubborn little mule,” she said, not without warmth. “You’ll see, you’ll like these guests. 

Two young voices trilled through the air, so loud and boisterous that it made Nori and Dori sound downright demure. Ori shrank further back into the shadows. A curious head poked under the table, the bright beads of youth clacking in his hair, 

“Hello! I’m Kili, are you Ori? My Ma and your Ma are talking and they’re being very boring about it. They said we should play because we’re of age, but you look much smaller than me. How old are you? I bet I’m older. It’d be nice to be older than someone for once. ” 

Ori hooked his chin over his knees. Perhaps if he stayed very still, this whirling hurricane would pass him by. 

“We’ve come a very long way,” Kili clattered onward, “in a cart! We bumped and rattled and we’re supposed to be making a dip-lo-mat-ic visit. What do you suppose that is? I think it means you’re supposed to come out and play, is what I think. There’s lots of halls to run through and I’ve got a wooden sword, do you? We could do a battle and-” 

“Kili,” a flash of bright hair passed into Ori’s vision. “Leave him be.” 

“But he’s supposed to play with me,” Kili pouted. 

“I’ll play with you. No need to terrorize the lad.” 

Ori didn’t know his name, didn’t see his face. He only heard a gentle voice and his small heart stuttered in his chest. His unwitting tormentor was drawn away and he heard the sounds of a mock battle raging at a safe distance away. The shadows flickered over the flagstone, time passing Ori by as he returned his attention to the pages of his book. 

“You’ve missed lunch,” the voice was back. A hand extended into the darkness, a leather bag swinging from it. “Your ma said that you usually do, but I thought you might be hungry. There’s a sweet roll and some raisins if you’d like them.” 

Ori reached out, not to grab the bag, but to touch the hand that held them. The knuckles were already scarred from whacks of a practice blade and the wrist bore tiny burns where a glove fell short of protecting him from a forge’s flames. 

“Not hungry,” Ori swallowed thickly, working himself up to an unprecedented offer. “But...maybe if we split the roll? You could-” 

Before he could finish, half of the sticky treat was in his hand and the bench was pulled aside for long enough for another body to crawl in beside his. Their shoulders pressed together. 

“My Ma wants me to practice negotiating tactics with Dori,” confessed the low voice. “Hiding under here with you sounds a lot more fun.” 

“Oh,” Ori stuffed a bite of the bun into his mouth. 

“Sorry about, Kili. He’s just excitable. You’d probably like him if you wanted to go play with him. Almost everyone does.” 

“No,” he said firmly, crumbs falling out of his mouth. 

“Then I guess you’re stuck with me. What’re you reading?” 

“Um,” Ori swallowed hurriedly. “Amain’s Tales.” 

“The ones with the goats?” 

“You read them?” 

“Well, I read them to Kili. Oh, I’m Fili, by the way.” 

Fili, Ori’s heart thumped loud in his ears: Fili, Fili, Fili. 

Not long after that, Thorin moved his sister’s family into the rented rooms just above Ori’s family. Dis wasn’t pleased with the relocation and often came down to complain with Ori’s mother about the state of things. Ori could have kissed her for her malcontentedness as a visit from her almost always brought along Fili and Kili. Ori finally allowed himself to be coaxed out from under the table to play more rough and tumble games.

“Can’t catch me!” Kili taunted and jumped up into the eaves of the house. Fili watched him with wide worried eyes, tensed to catch him. 

“Why don’t you chase after him?” Ori asked, picking at his fingers nervously. 

“Because someone needs to stay on the ground,” Fili gave him a tight smile, his eyes never leaving Kili. 

Even then, Ori noticed that Fili’s eyes were always on Kili. Forever trained upward or sideways, never watching his own feet or taking care as he ran to keep up, to keep watch. 

“I can do that,” Ori smiled at him. “I prefer the ground under my feet.” 

“Not what I meant,” but Fili was already looking longingly after his brother. As if he too wanted to be wild for just a short gasp.  
“I know, but I can. I’ll just whistle if I see your mother.” 

“You’re the best,” Fili clapped him so heartily on the back that Ori staggered forward. Then he was up and gone, climbing after his brother and laughing. They kept their balance as they danced and Ori took an inordinate amount of joy in watching them. 

For many happy years, they were children together. Ori could bring out a dozen memories, polished to high sheen like coveted gems, of Fili’s hair in the sun and his rough hand cupping the back of Ori’s neck or his low voice mixing with Kili’s laughter. 

“You should take greater care,” Dori tsked at him when he came home all over with nicks and scratches. Fili had taken to teaching him how to fight and Kili had lent a helping hand. Which had wound up with the three of them in a raucous scuffle in a ditch. 

“But you always say I need more fresh air!” Ori protested as Dori dabbed at bruises with witchhazel. 

“And what happens if you knock the sense loose from our princes? They may not care much for their lumps and bumps, but our ilk cannot be the kind to inflict them.”

Before that, Ori had sort of known that Fili and Kili were different. He knew they had lessons that he didn’t and that sometimes Fili’s brow would furrow over some adult talk that Ori didn’t understand. Yet, it somehow sounded like new information. Because Fili was a prince and Ori....Ori was something lesser. 

“Why do you look at me like that?” Fili demanded days later. 

“Like what?” Ori stared at him nakedly, trying to banish the knowledge from his expression. 

“As if I were about to shatter before you. Trust me with the way you wield that stick, you’d have to beat at me for hours to raise even a single welt!” 

Ori shrank back. He couldn’t recall a time that Fili had been angry with him. It stung like a nettle. 

“Oh, damn it all.” Fili threw down the padded staff they’d been practicing with. “You’ll be worthless for this now, won’t you?” 

“I didn’t- I can try harder. At practice. I didn’t-” 

And to his hot shame, he started to cry. The tears were his constant bane, welling up far too often for his tender pride to bear. 

“Ori,” Fili sighed. 

“Sorry!” He dashed his sleeve over his eyes. “Sorry, I should go.” 

“Don’t you dare,” Fili laughed softly and reached out, brushing a hand over Ori’s face. “You shouldn’t be sorry, I should. I’m being a terrible friend today. I woke up out of sorts.” 

“You miss Kili,” Ori didn’t lean into the caress. He’d already acted enough of the child for one day. 

“Why would I miss that whining, gloating botheration?” Fili grinned, his hand dropping away. “He’ll be back by the end of the week, before I can even really enjoy him being gone. I think it’s this cursed sun. Let’s find some shade and a drink.” 

They adjourned to the stone courtyard beneath the oak tree, sharing a flagon of water. 

“He really will be back soon,” Ori said into the quiet. Fili had gone over dark again, his brow wrinkled in worry. “Probably with a thousand stories about kills that are only in his head.” 

“Of course, he will,” Fili sniffed. “Killed a dozen deer with one arrow!” 

“Ate half a boar in a sitting,” Ori grinned. “And anyway, he’s got Thorin looking after him.” 

That put the frown back on Fili’s face. 

“I-” 

“Uncle gets distracted,” Fili muttered, talking more to himself than to Ori. “He won’t remember to keep an eye on him.” 

“He loves Kili,” Ori rushed to assure him. “Nothing will happen to him.” 

“I should have gone with him.” 

“I think your Ma said you weren’t to go and if you tried she’d hogtie you herself.” 

“So she did,” and Fili turned his sights back to Ori, but it was with an uncomfortable intensity. “Why have you been looking at me so oddly?” 

“Oh, only that you’ve been in a poor mood and-” 

“Ori,” Fili said so gravely that Ori could finally see it. 

“I’ve been trying to see you with a crown on your head, “ he admitted. 

“Why?” The rage of earlier returned, a spark in the usually calm eyes that flashed a warning. 

“Because Dori says I should remember that you’re a prince and I’m very much not.” 

“That’s ridiculous! I’m no different than you.” 

“Now that, is a lie,” Ori gave him a tremulous half-smile. “Aren’t you at least two inches taller, better with a sword than I? Also, milord-” 

“Ori,” Fili warned. 

“Well, I truly hate to say it, but I do believe I’m quite a bit smarter.” 

“What did you say?” The danger left Fili’s eyes in his shock. 

“I’m smarter than you, princeling,” Ori darted to his feet. “And quite a bit faster!” 

“We’ll see about that you, brat!” 

The chase was on and luckily, Ori was a good sight faster and could keep the race going until the last of the black mood had fallen away. He led Fili down to the river and they ended their afternoon with a cold bath to take off the last of the hot day. Ori watched Fili float in his small clothes, hair spread in a golden halo around him in the water. 

Childhood began to ebb away that day, taking with it some innocent pleasures and sweet nights of sleep. One night, Ori dreamed of ink spilling from the sky, painting the grass black and slick. He danced amid paper flowers and listened to it crunch beneath his feet. It grew darker, the ink pouring into his eyes and he reached up to wipe it away. His hand came away wet, but it wasn’t black at all-

“Up with you now!” Hard hangs dug into his shirt and shook him. 

“Get off me!” He protested, lashing out with fist and foot. 

“Damnation! It’s only me! Just Nori,” the hands released him. “Who taught you to wake up swinging?” 

“Dori, after the last time you tried to wake me up with too hard a shake and almost did my brains in,” Ori reminded him. The room was pitch black, only the slightest sliver of moonlight breaking through the window. “What did you wake me for?” 

“You asked me to or don’t you remember? Something about ...something. I wasn’t actually listening,” Nori wrinkled his nose. “Runes, maybe?” 

“The casting!” Ori scrambled up, nearly upsetting Nori off the bed and onto the floor. His brother still wore yesterday’s clothes and Ori tried not to think about where he might’ve been all night. After all, today he was profiting from his brother’s late to rise and even later to bed tendencies. 

“Right. That. If you need me, I’ll be asleep like a normal person.” 

Ori rushed to the courtyard, still in his pajamas. There was only a small window of time and if he missed it, then he’d have to wait until next year. The stones weren’t even proper runic stones, just smoothed river rocks that he’d determinedly scratched at until the symbols took. The art of casting had long ago been abandoned by dwarves, the evidence only remaining in the oldest books. 

With care, he paced to the spot he’d marked out weeks ago and took the bag of rocks from his pocket. Carefully he poured them into his palm, counting them as they fell. A dozen just as it should be. When the moonlight danced to him, washing the space in light, the stones poured from his fingers and spread themselves. 

He’d been worried that he wouldn’t be able to read them. The symbolism wasn’t always clear and in half of his practice castings, the message had been gibberish. The past week, he’d been knitting gloves as a back up gift. 

But the message was clear. 

A journey into shadow. All shall fade. 

Ori stared at the stones he had made and wished he’d never come up with such a terrible gift. One hand scattered the message into the dust and another thrust the jumble into his pocket. He fled, barefoot, down to the river. With a heave, he threw the lot of them into the river as hard as he could. 

“It’s only a silly superstition,” he told the water, the moon, the late night fisherman dozing over their rods. 

He gave Fili the gloves for his birthday instead. The runes message would’ve been a silly gift anyway, he told himself.

“Ah! Those’ll be a help on a winter’s night,” Fili pulled them on though the day was warm. 

“And go right well with these,” Kili slid Fili a package with a wink. “Saw you eyeing them up when last we went to the market.” 

Twin blades nestled in brown leather glinted as Fili drew them from their wrapping.

“This is too much!” Fili protested, even as he strapped them to his back. 

“Nice bit of leatherworking, if I don’t say so myself,” Kili beamed. 

Ori slunk off, his very presence already forgotten. Though Thorin’s kin were separated from their vast treasures, they were still better off than most. No dwarf forgot who Thorin really was and a great deal of luxury landed on his doorstep because of it. Kili could buy Fili a fine gift and Ori was reduced to children’s rituals and gloves. 

“What’s that look for?” Dori hurried by him the hall, the question half-forgotten as soon as it was asked. 

“Tired,” Ori faked a yawn. 

“Ma is looking for you,” Dori threw over his shoulder. “Something about mud tracked into the hallway. I told her it was probably Nori.” 

“It’s always Nori,” Ori agreed and curled his toes in his boots. 

He avoided his mother and went out to the market to find a job. If he came home with money then his mother would forget the mess. It was a slow day, but people knew his face now. Several merchants dropped their ledgers in his laps and there were even two commissions for contracts that he wrote up on the spot as the parties haggled out the details. 

“It’s bad form,” the gentle chiding slid over his spine as the ink dried on the second contract. “Avoiding me on my own birthday?” 

“It’s still a work day for me,” Ori turned to face Fili. 

It was strange. He knew that Fili wasn’t actually any different than he had been the day before. There was still dirt under his fingernails and barely any hair on his face, but something had changed. The way he stood a little straighter to accommodate the new blades perhaps or the higher heels of the new boots. He looked older. More certain. 

Sadder. 

“So it is. Are you nearly done?” 

“I should stay until sunset,” Ori bit his bottom lip. It wasn’t often Fili sought him out after all. “But I suppose I’ve made enough for the day. Why?” 

“Thought about camping out tonight. Not to hunt. Just...get away for a bit.” 

“And you want to bring me?” 

“Well, you do build the best fires, couldn’t keep warm without you,” Fili cajoled. “C’mon. It’ll do us both good to get away for a bit. You barely left home over the winter and now the frost has gone from the grass, it’s time to breath some fresh air.” 

“You had me at the flattery,” Ori grinned. “I’ll go home and get my-” 

Fili pulled a hand from behind his back, Ori’s travel pack hanging limply from it. 

“Took it on myself to get you ready. It was still mostly filled, actually. Planning on going somewhere?” 

“I like being prepared,” Ori flushed hot, hoping that Fili hadn’t spotted the pot of oil shoved down at the bottom. “What did you tell my Ma?” 

“That we were going hunting.” 

“I suppose we’ll be having bad luck then?” Ori shouldered his pack. 

“The worst.” 

“And what of Kili?” 

“What about him?” Fili asked lightly. 

“Doesn’t he want to come?” 

“Don’t know. Didn’t ask.” 

“Ah,” Ori began and then stopped. He had no idea what to make of that. It was simply unprecedented. 

“Look,” Fili pointed out a stall at the edge of the market. “We can pick up some of the local brew before we head out. Make a proper night of it.” 

“Drunk in the woods is a terrible idea.” 

“Then we won’t get drunk. We’ll have just enough to keep us merry.” 

The walk was a pleasant one, an hour or so outside of town into the dense forests. There was a series of caves hidden over with foliage and one of them bore the marks of many hunters’ fires at the mouth. 

“You take the flames and I’ll see to the rest,” Fili directed and Ori fell naturally into his role. 

In short order, they were set. Fili even produced a container of his mother’s stew to fill their bellies as the sun bowed out. It wasn’t until they scrapped the bottom of their bowls that Fili finally said, 

“I’m leaving.” 

“What?” Ori clenched his bowl. “When? Why?” 

“Thorin wants to take me and Kili to meet Dain. He says that will be all, but Ma thinks he wants to resettle in the Blue Mountain for a time. A new life all over again.” 

“It will be an adventure,” Ori tried to smile, but could not make his mouth obey him. 

“It will be a dreary series of obligations,” Fili set aside his bowl and poured them both a mug of ale. “I can’t- we’ve barely been here a decade and that’s the longest I can remember staying anywhere.” 

“But you’ll be back,” it sounded a little desperate even to his own ears. 

“For a time. But then it will be the next visit, in another direction or another job. We’re vagabonds by necessity. Sometimes, I dream about Erebor. Not for the gold or the crown, but for somewhere I can keep a room that doesn’t have to fold back into a pack.” 

Ori’s family had kept the same rooms for so many years that even Dori claimed to not remember the place they were before. Their parents talk about Erebor, but only in a misty way that one discussed a pretty memory. It never felt real to Ori, never felt like somewhere that should be home instead of the sagging wooden building on the outskirts of a human town. 

Fili had been the first child born outside of Erebor, already secreted in his mother’s belly as the mountain shook with a dragon’s bellow. Ori had heard it said that Fili’s hair had turned gold that day so that his mother might have the reminder of what was lost. 

Which was more than a little too melodramatic and unfair to a baby to boot, Ori thought. 

“I’ll miss you,” it came out rawer than Ori had intended. 

“And I’ll miss you,” Fili stared into the fire. “You’re the best friend I’ve ever had, you know.”

“I- well. You’re my best friend too. And that won’t be any less true if you’re not living above me.” 

“Won’t it? A year or two...we could be strangers the next time we meet.”

“Not possible,” Ori squared his shoulders. “I would know you anywhere, anytime.” 

“People change,” Fili drank down the last of his ale. “Don’t listen to me anyway. I’m only being foolish.” 

“You’ll never stop being my Fili,” Ori said fiercely. “But let us speak of something else. If you’re to be gone so long, let’s have our last memory be a happy one.”

“Tell me a story,” Fili poured them another round and then lay back on his bedroll, eyes at half-mast. “Something new that you’ve read.” 

“Fable or history?” 

Back on familiar ground, Ori eased himself down to stretch alongside Fili. They both fixed their gazes on the stars that peeked through the trees. 

“Either. Something happy.”

Ori had recited many tales for Fili and Kili in the darkness. The princes, truth be told, were not much for reading at all. Kili usually fell asleep as soon as the light failed and he claimed that Ori’s voice was too soothing for recitation. Yet, Fili, who rarely slept well or deeply, always loved the stories and would often move imperceptibly closer while Ori talked until his head was in his friend’s lap. Often, Ori would emerge from the other end of a story to find his hand in the golden hair, scratching over Fili’s scalp. 

It was the kind of intimacy that Fili shouldn’t allow and Ori greedily lapped up. 

“In the second age, there was a lord who went by the name of Ein. His domain extended under the Tomorrow Hills and he reigned from a throne carved of silver inlaid with emeralds. Across the valley, there was a lord named Dun. His domain extended under the Yesterday Hills and he reigned from a throne made of gold inlaid with rubies. 

“In the middle of the valley between them was a meadow full of every kind of flower. There the two enclaves met and mingled and often married. But neither lord could venture there, for ancient omens predicted that they would lose their domains if ever the sitting lords did leave them.

“Yet, Ein had been an adventurer in his youth and he missed the fresh air and the bite of an autumn evening. The desire for that breath of air started as a seed of an idea, but it grew and grew, gnawing at him as he listened to his people’s complaints and cases. It nagged at him while his advisors laid out plans and his miners brought him their wares. Even as he slept in his grand bed, he dreamed of standing outside the doorway with the moonlight streaming down.” 

Fili made a soft sound of understanding, his head turning towards Ori. His eyes were two blue pools with the fire dancing a reflection his pupils. 

“Soon the joys of his reign became dust in his mouth. If he could not leave then how could he enjoy the fruits of staying? He could risk losing all if it meant gaining back that slice of freedom. So very late one night, he put on a miner’s cloak and snuck out like a thief. As he drew near to door, his nerves nearly overcame him. Three times, he turned back. But each time, the faint breeze from around the cracks of the door drew him back. 

“At last, he put his hands to the door and pushed it open. He almost wept with joy. Here were the joys above the hills that he remembered. The flowers smelled sweeter than he remembered, the moonlight brighter. He forgot all his caution and walked in a daze into the meadow.” 

“Foolish,” Fili murmured, his nose at Ori’s thigh now and one hand idly beating out the rhythm of the tale on his mug. “If his domain is lost, so might the people in it.”

“Desire makes fools of us all,” Ori swallowed thickly.

“Too true,” Fili said with a sigh. “Go on.” 

“As he walked among the flowers, he saw another man in the distance. He did not want his own people to see him. If they knew he would risk them, then he would lose their loyalty. But this figure drew closer and he saw that the cloak was not one of Tomorrow, but Yesterday.” 

“How would he know?” Fili’s head bumped into Ori’s thigh like an alley cat. 

“The length, I suppose. It’s a story, just listen.” 

“Bossy.” 

“Yes, that’s me,” Ori said dryly. “Commanding presence.” 

“You are when you’re like this.” 

And Ori wasn’t sure how to take that, so he pushed on. 

“He debated ducking into the wet grass, but it was soon too late and the other dwarf was nearly upon him. ‘Good evening,’ he raised his hand in greeting.” 

“And the other dwarf was quite startled. He returned the greeting after a short pause. They talked idly of the flowers and the moon. Neither mentioned why they were alone out at such an hour. Then the conversation turned to books read, meals eaten and lovers taken. Ein found that they had much in common. He made to ask if they could meet again, but the first light of dawn robbed him of the chance. 

“‘I must go!’ the other dwarf declared. Ein wanted to ask him his name, but then the dwarf would ask him his name in return and what could he say? If he gave his real name, then the other dwarf would know him as a lord and what he had done. If he gave a fake name, then he began a friendship under false pretenses, a violation that his honor could now allow. 

“ ‘I’ll be here in three days time,” he said instead. And the other dwarf left and Ein left. Three days later, they met again amid the flowers. And three days after that. And two days after that. And then every night Ein slipped from his to meet his friend.” 

“That’s a good friend,” Fili stretched, back arching up and Ori kept his eyes trained on the fire. He did not see the sliver of skin or the curve of a hip bone. “Nightly visits?” 

“I suppose it was the novelty of it. A lord acting the peasant.” 

“Hmm,” Fili smiled, more genuinely this time. “Is there a point you’re trying to make, friend?” 

“You’re the one that asked for a story.” 

“And you’re the one that choose this one.” 

“I can stop,” Ori folded his hands over his stomach. 

“No, no,” Fili waved a hand. “You started this morality tale, you might as well see it through to the moral.” 

“It isn’t a morality anything. But fine. Where was I?” 

“Suspiciously regular trysts in a field.” 

“Meadow. Anyway. Yes. It might all have kept on that way, but habits make for carelessness and one night when Ein slipped away, one of his guards saw him. He was stopped and the story raged through his domain. For seven generations of his family, the sitting lord had not dared to leave and now what would become of them? 

“His advisors had him locked up in his rooms, trapping him more than he’d ever been before. Yet, he could not think of the lost fresh air, but of his friend who would never know why he disappeared. He could not even send a message as he had no name to put to the face only ever seen in shadow.”

“It was the other lord, wasn’t it?” Fili interjected. 

“I-you- oh, go ahead and ruin it then.” 

“Not ruining it,” Fili laughed at his indignation and his head thumped down solidly on Ori’s thigh. “Can’t help it if it was obvious. Tell me the rest.” 

“You could probably guessed it.” 

“Don’t pout,” Fili poked him. “Finish it.” 

“Fine, fine...well. Though the advisors of Ein tried hard to keep the story from spreading across the valley, gossip will travel faster than wildfire. Soon all was in chaos and the people of both Yesterday and Tomorrow prepared for the ending of all things.

“On the third day, Ein’s advisors finally came to him for the land was still his to rule. ‘Call on Lord Dun. I would meet him in the meadow.’ They protested, but Ein only said ‘I have already left many times. The prophecy has been set in motion. Stepping outside again will make no difference.’ ‘He will not come’, they said. ‘That is for him to decide’. So the advisors went, imagining that Lord Dun would be wise enough to say no. 

“Instead, Dun’s advisors met them in the middle of meadow and confessed that they had been sent by their lord to ask for the self-same thing. They were honorable at heart and though they discussed deception, in the end they agreed that their lords would at last meet and hope they could defy their prophecy.” 

Ori’s hand fell into Fili’s hair. It was always a little softer than he expected, the curl of it clinging to his fingers. The first time he’d done this, it had felt blasphemous, but Fili always relaxed into it as if he was expecting it. As if it were only his due. 

“There was much pomp and no little bit of second guessing, but the day came at last. Ein dressed in his fine robes and best jewels. He walked, not out of the small side door, but through the front gates as befit his stature. The sun fell warm on his face and in the sunlight, the meadow as even more beautiful and welcoming. 

“He could see the other delegation setting out from their gates. They walked slowly, dignified across the grasses. Or they did until Ein could finally make out the face of Lord Dun. And he discovered, as some cheeky bastards might already have guessed-” 

“Obvious,” Fili insisted, butting his head into Ori’s palm. 

“That Lord Dun was his friend all along. Lord Ein laughed so loud and long that the hills echoed with it. And Lord Dun laughed along with him. They broke free of their plodding pace and ran to meet each other, clasping wrists. Their planned negotiations turned into a joyful reunion and they spoke while the advisors looked on bemused. 

“‘We should not celebrate so,’ Ein said when their laughter finally faded. ‘For we have spelled the doom of our domains in this.’ ‘Perhaps not,’ said Dun. ‘The prophecy predicts the end, but must it be an unhappy one?’

“So it was that domains of Yesterday and Tomorrow were dissolved and the kingdom of Today was born, ruled over by not one, but two kings and their people no longer lived under the pall of the prophecy.” 

“Is that it? That’s the end?” Fili’s eyes were closed. 

“That’s the end. Happy for all.” 

“It was a selfish thing to do. It could’ve gone terribly wrong,” Fili sighed, turning his head so he could rub his cheek against Ori’s pants. “Desire makes us foolish, but obligation keeps us steady.” 

“It wasn’t a morality tale,” Ori sighed and leaned his head back against stone. “It’s just about friendship.” 

“That wasn’t a friendship,” Fili mumbled. “That was love. It takes love to make someone do something so reckless.” 

“Does it?” Ori’s hand stilled. 

“Fighting your heart is far harder than any other enemy, ” All sleepiness fell away, Fili’s eyes were wide open. “Even when it’s impossible. Even when you know that a valley that can never be crossed separates you.” 

“Fili-” An impossible hope flickered to life in Ori’s chest. 

“You must know,” Fili focus was on him, the full intensity of it and it made Ori squirm in his skin. “You watch me so closely, you must see it. But you’ve never said a word. It’s a kindness that I’m not sure I can repay.” 

The problem was that Ori hadn’t known until just then. Until Fili forced his hand and all the pieces feel into place, sinking into his stomach like those terrible stones into the river. 

“I’d never say a word.”

“I know,” Fili took Ori’s hand and squeezed it once. “Time will take care of it. By the next time you see me, it will be only a bitter memory.” 

Fili fell asleep not long after that, his head still pillowed on Ori’s thigh. Ori didn’t move, staring unsleeping at the stars. He tried not to think about anything, but his mind wasn’t good at stillness. It wanted to make sense of things, to find a narrative. When had it happened? When had Fili looked at his brother and saw something else? Something to be desired, to be loved? What was it like to live with that? Ori couldn’t imagine seeing Nori and Dori as anything other than petty tyrants with sticky fingers and claustrophobic interest in his safety. 

Fili would never do anything about it, of that Ori was sure. They were too much alike for that. By nature they set their hearts on the unreachable, then quietly resigned themselves. Why strive for what you knew was wrong to even want? 

Under the fading moonlight, Ori slid a knife out from his belt. It was a small, wicked thing. A gift from Fili as it happened. It was meant to sharpen quills, but it could manage this too. He reached down and struck before he had time to second guess himself. 

His prize hung from his fingertips, trembling on the wind. Quickly, he bundled the lock of hair into a handkerchief for safekeeping. Fili didn’t so much as stir, his breath painting heat over Ori’s knee. 

The next morning, Fili was in a grim mood and Ori left him to himself. They packed the camp back up and walked back to town each lost in their own thoughts. When they neared home, there was a shout and Kili came bounding out of the house with a manic grin. 

“You’re in trouble!” He hooted. “Ma and Uncle were up half the night waiting for you!”

“You didn’t tell them we were going?” Ori turned on Fili, all astonishment. 

“We’ll leave just as easy this morning as we would’ve last night,” Fili hunched his shoulders. 

“I can’t believe it!” Kili laughed. “They thought for sure you’d been hit by a cart or something. Reliable big brother couldn’t possibly given us all the slip!” 

“But you told my Ma. She would have said if-” 

“ORI!” Dori bellowed from a window. “There you are! What on Mahal’s Forge were you thinking? We were worried sick!” 

“I’m very sorry,” Fili sighed. “But if I’d told them, they would have told my Ma and we would’ve gotten as far as the edge of the market.” 

“You...I....” Ori wondered if he should be angry. Instead, he had to fight down an enormous smile. Fili may not love him, but he cared enough to lie to everyone that cared about them to steal a last night away in the woods. It wasn’t everything, not even a fraction of what Ori wanted, but it was enough to live on. 

“You best have a good explanation for this, lad,” Thorin filled the doorway and Fili took a fragmented step back. 

“It was my fault,” Ori folded his arms and lifted his chin. “When Fili told me he was leaving, I got upset. We went for a walk in the woods and I got us turned around.” 

“You brought your packs for a walk in the woods,” Thorin’s eyebrows lifted high. “Do you take me for an idiot?” 

“No, sir!” Ori locked his hands behind his back so Thorin wouldn’t see him fidget. “But don’t blame Fili. I tricked him into it.” 

“Ori, you don’t have to,” Fili squeezed his shoulder. “I’m sorry, Uncle. It won’t happen again.” 

“And we best save the lecture for the road,” Kili cut in. “Or we’ll never make it to the Hunter’s Rest by nightfall.” 

“Don’t think I’ll just forget this,” Thorin warned, but he was looking up at the sun and turning back into the house already. “You’ll be on cooking duty for the first three nights at least.” 

“Yes, sir.” 

“C’mon, bad seed,” Kili grinned. “I’ve done most of your packing already, but I’m sure you’ll want to check it over.” 

“Thanks,” Fili returned the grin and now that he was looking for it, Ori could see the longing in the edges of it. “Don’t be so pleased. You’ll do something to make them forget all about this soon enough.” 

“Aw, let me enjoy being the good son a little longer.” 

They bantered their way back into the house, leaving Ori to the tender mercies of his brothers. By the time they were done reaming him out and handed him off to his mother for punishment, the Durins were nearly gone. Only Kili remained, turned back to retrieve his heavier jacket. 

“Good thing too,” Kili tugged Ori into a hug. “Or how would I’ve gotten a chance to say goodbye? The grownups are in far too much of a rush to get nowhere at all. Fi thinks we’ll be away for ages. Don’t forget about us, all right?” 

“I couldn’t,” Ori hugged him back. He already smelled of the road. 

“Good,” Kili pulled back and looked over Ori thoughtfully. “Who knows? Maybe by the time we get back, we’ll both have some hair on our chins.” 

“Me, maybe? You, never.” Ori said just to provoke Kili’s outrage. 

“I forgot why I liked you already!” Kili thumped him on the shoulder. “And don’t worry, I’ll look after Fi for you. Oh, don’t look so shocked! I’m capable of it, you know. I see how you cluck over him and I suppose someone has to or he’ll worry himself into an early grave. But Kili is on the job!” 

“Oh,” Ori said faintly. 

“Goodbye!” Kili hugged him tightly again and then he was gone, leaving an echoing silence in his wake. 

For three months, Ori lived in that silence. He barely talked himself, working all hours that he could fill and using the rest to lose himself in his books or his knitting needles. The quiet spread from him, softening the voices of all who came near him. Dori was solicitous, bringing him pots of ink and lamb’s wool, Nori forced him outside to spar and their mother taught him the way of making honey buns. 

“At this rate, I’ll never have a daughter-in-law to teach it too,” she sighed over the loaves. “I wish we lived somewhere with more lasses for you boys to be chosen from.” 

Ori concentrated on kneading the dough. 

At the beginning of the fourth month, the first flakes of snow ushered in a guest. Ori was home alone when the knock came and he went listlessly to the door. Behind it was a white haired dwarf with a kind smile and a large book tucked under his arms. 

“Hello, lad. I’m Balin, at your service. Might I come in?” 

“I’m sorry, sir, but my mother and brothers aren’t at home nor are they due back soon.” 

“That’s fine. It’s you I’m here to see,” Balin strode in, looking around the humble living space. With a soft hum, he set the great book down on Ori’s makeshift writing desk. 

“Me?” 

“You’ve been chosen, you see. By me and a few others, their names hardly matter, as the the next record keeper.” 

“Keeper of what records?” 

Balin opened the great book, 

“Of our record. The dwarves of Erebor. For now that means keeping track of all who live in exile.” 

“That’s hundreds of us! How am I meant to-” 

“Births, deaths and marriages will be sent to you by post. All other stories will be up to you to pick and choose from. They should be only the most important of tales. Even then it will take you some time,” Balin sorted through Ori’s inks and drew out his best blacks. “Come and sit with me now, lad. I have a lot to teach you and not much time to do it in.” 

“But I haven’t accepted!” 

“Did I say there was a choice?” Balin asked, not unkindly. “Everyone has their role to play, Ori. This is yours. Come now.” 

Ori went. Balin flipped to the front cover where a neat list of names written in a dozen handwritings extended down one side of the margin. Many of them were famous names, others time had forgotten. With a shaking hand, Ori added his name under them all. 

With that, the history of Erebor was his and he held it fast until his dying day.


	2. Chapter 2

It was a warm spring day when Ori saw Fili again. As Fili had predicted, the Durins relocated to the Blue Mountain to live with their cousins without ever returning to the rooms upstairs. Ori wrote letters when he could, long things filled with local gossip and older stories. In return, there were short notes in Fili’s messy hand with Kili’s messier postscripts wrapped around dried meats or soft wools. Once there was even a wooden bowl covered in geometric carvings though it was unclear who had made it.

Ori kept the bowl on his bedside table to hold the odds and ends of his pockets. If that meant it was the last thing he saw before he closed his eyes for bed, then that was happy coincidence. 

“I’m going to nip out to the market,” Dori said on the day in question. He leaned over Ori, watching the quill dance over parchment. “Do you need anything?” 

“No,” Ori paused, considering, “well, maybe. Do you think you could find me some trestleberries? There’s a recipe from the Second Age on making red ink that I’d like to try. Don’t bother if they’re too dear.” 

“It’s your coin,” Dori smiled indulgently at him, “so I think we can spare a bit for your messes.” 

“Thank you,” Ori repressed a sigh. 

With Dori gone, the house settled. Nori was snoring away on the couch by the fire and unlikely to wake up for hours. With great care, Ori wiped down his quill and stored away his inks so they wouldn’t dry. On light feet, he slipped out the back door. He sucked in the sweet air and followed the path down to the river. 

“Hail, dear scribe!” Jamathon held out a hand from his boat. “I thought we might not see you today.” 

“And miss my luncheon?” Ori took it, stepping aboard alongside the fisherman. “Forbid the thought.” 

“I’ve a bit of something laid aside. You know what it will cost you,” Jamathon squeezed back. 

“Such a terribly high price,” Ori smiled at him and kissed the man with no little passion. The height difference was inconvenient, but easily remedied by laying down inside the boat’s cramped cabin. 

Afterwards, they dined on fish and buttered bread. Jamathon stretched proudly naked on their makeshift bed, his long blond hair in a mess of curls spread over the pillow. Ori curled beside him matching his attire, but for the steel locket around his neck. 

“I’ll be out to sea again in a few days,” he said. 

“Mmm. I had assumed.” 

“I’ll be gone all summer,” Jamathon traced a finger up Ori’s thigh. “Will you miss me?” 

“Surely,” Ori smiled at him. 

“Ah, liar,” Jamathon sighed. “Your mind is already wandering away from me.” 

“There’s no one else.” 

“Not a person, no. But you fit too many things in that hard skull,” with a stretch and another put upon sigh, Jamathon rose to dress himself. “It won’t be like last summer. When I get back, I’ll have to start looking for a wife.” 

“Oh? Aren’t you young for that?” The ages of Men never failed to confuse Ori. He knew Jamathon was old enough to share a bed though he was only four and twenty. At that age, Ori had still been hiding under tables. 

“Too old already, according to my aunties.” 

“Do you want to get married?” 

“It’s expected. There’s children to be had and all.” 

“But you must be too young to have children!” Ori’s eyes went wide. 

“My parents had four of us by my age and even they started a bit late.” 

“Goodness.” 

“Shouldn’t you be looking for a wife too?” 

“No dwarf lass would take me seriously for another two decades at least,” he leaned back against the hull and listened to the water through the wood. “Marriages are rare, anyway. Both sides have to be hegraebeorth for it.”

“Which means?” 

“Oh,” Ori frowned, searching for the right words. Translation could be such a bother when the languages stood so far apart. “Something like ‘hearts possessing each other’.” 

“You mean like in love?” 

“More than love. It’s a sacred promise that you will never love another for the rest of your days even if your spouse should perish. Most don’t bother with it. Dwarf lasses prefer to choose a sire for their children and then move on without him.” 

“But a boy should have a father!” Jamathon looked utterly scandalized. 

“Why? Brothers and uncles do just as well as any father.” 

“Is that why you dally with me?”

“Because of my brothers?” 

“Because you don’t have to settle down? Do dwarf men really just do as they please? Tumble into bed with...whomever? ”

“You make it sound sordid,” Ori was suddenly too aware of his own nudity and tugged at the blanket to cover himself. “It isn’t. We only share a bed with someone we love. Dalliances maybe, but some of them last for decades.”

“You can’t have decades with me,” Jamathon moved to kneel down beside him. “You can’t even have another winter. I’ll be home in fall and probably married before the first frost. ”

“And I’m sorry for it. I do love you,” Ori put a hand to his cheek. Jamathon kept it purposely bare as was the fashion among menfolk. The smoothness was alien and beautiful in it’s own way. 

“So you’re different than?” 

“I’m consorting with a human. Different isn’t the word my people would use. I doubt that is much different from your side of things.”

“Freak,” Jamathon agreed. “Or worse. You don’t seem sad about it for someone who loves me.” 

“It’s not that kind of love. I don’t want to own you. Though I hope we will still be friends and share lunches on your boat.”

“Aye,” Jamathon leaned in and kissed him on the cheek. “I think we can manage that. For now though, off my ship, dear one.”

“What, already?”

“A clean end is a good end. I’ll see you in the fall.” 

There was nothing else for it, so Ori returned the fragile kiss and then pulled on his clothes. He did not look back as he climbed up the ladder to the deck or even as he walked down the dock. He thought he should be sadder, but instead there was only fond relief. Too much of their affair had been spent in fear of being found out. The weight of secrecy had lifted. 

Ori walked home with a song humming at the back of his throat and his fingers itching for his pen. He would take what he felt and use it to color the story of the marriage of Gloin, the news of which had lately reached him. It was an important wedding, the first in dozen years and deserved more than a quick notation of dates. 

As he approached the back of the house, music slowed his step. Someone was playing a light air on a fiddle. Nori had several musician friends and it was possible one had come to visit. But the music came from without instead of within and Ori approached the back door with caution.

A stranger stood at the backdoor, eyes closed to the sun and the bow arching over the strings with a gleeful trill. As Ori approached, he made out golden hair and his feet sped up without his permission. There were, of course, many blonde dwarfs. It could be anyone. The fiddle obscured the face, even as Ori grew nearer. 

Still. Ori knew. This was why he had parted from Jamathon today and had done nothing to stop it. He twisted the steel links around his wrist, so that the locket he never removed landed in his palm. 

The bow screeched over the strings,  
“Ori!” The joyful cry took the place of the music. 

And that was a voice that Ori would always recognize. Even if it had gone a little deeper. 

“Fili!” He was launching himself forward, breaking into a run. Fili set down his fiddle and flung his arms wide. The hug sent them crashing to ground. 

“Look at you!” Fili laughed, pushing Ori back enough to see him. “What a beard!” 

“And a fine mustache on you,” Ori reached out and tweaked one braid, before he realized that such familiarity might no longer be appreciated. Fili only grinned at him. 

“That is blatantly unfair. Even Ori’s got more hair on his face then me!” Black boots appeared in Ori’s peripheral vision which was the only warning he got before being lifted bodily upward into a strong hug. 

“Hello, Kili,” Ori hugged him back and clasped his forearms when he was placed at last on his feet. “It’s good to see you.” 

“Of course it is. Better than looking at all the ugly mugs around here,” Kili teased. “We were passing through and Fili said if we didn’t stop you’d never forgive us, so here we are.”

“I would’ve been furious,” Ori agreed and turned again to face Fili. “Thank you. For stopping.” 

“Don’t listen to him, it was never even up for discussion. Part of the planned route,” Fili put his arm around Ori’s shoulders and drew him in. “We were sorry to hear about your mother. It was a loss to all of us.” 

“Oh, well,” The sadness that never fully left him, crashed with surprising strength over him. “Yes. She...she’s missed.” 

“Our Ma sent on some things for the lot of you,” Kili broke in. “She’s worried about you all being on your own.” 

“Tell her not to worry, Dori and Nori make up for it by babying me twice as much.” 

“She’ll worry no matter what,” Fili walked him into the house. 

They sat around the kitchen table, Fili so close that Ori could drown in him. He truly had grown up now, his shoulders broad enough to hold the weight that would one day lay on them. Someone had taken great care with his braids, laying in signifiers of royalty and the Durin line. He smelled of the forge, the dust of the road and the forest. 

“I’d like to read your chapters of the Annal,” Fili murmured while Kili amused Dori with a winding tale that seemed to require a lot of hand gestures. 

“No, you wouldn’t,” Ori shook his head. “It’s dry stuff for the most part.” 

“But they’re my people, aren’t they?” Fili shrugged. “Dry or not, I should know of them.” 

“You know them better than I with the way you’ve been travelling. If anything, I should be asking you so I can write it down.” 

“A compromise then. We can only stay two nights, but we can spend them profitably enough for all involved.” 

“You’re here,” Ori couldn’t stop himself from saying. “That’s profit enough for me.” 

Fili’s lips parted, but Kili banged on the table to mark some beat in the story and the words were lost. Like a magnet finding north, Fili’s attention was back to Kili with unsettling intensity. Nothing had changed then. 

Kili turned and caught Fili’s gaze and the smile slid from his face, replaced with something darker and more subtle. 

Maybe something had changed. Ori looked between them, trying to make sense of it. 

“How came you to the fiddle?” He asked instead of the thousand clammy questions that wanted asking. “You never seem inclined to music before.” 

“Ah,” Fili’s half-smile squirmed on his face. “It was a bit of a dare. There’s a cousin, Teya, who’s a bit of a-” 

“Piece of orc shit,” Kili supplied. “Stubborn as a mule and arrogant to boot. He thinks he’s the best at everything from fighting to fu- well. You know.” 

“Language,” Dori tutted, but apparently too caught up in Kili’s charm to do more than scold. 

“Sorry,” Kili pushed on blithely. “Anyway, he’s also the size of a mountain goat and hits like a hammer. Neither of us could beat him in fight. But someone had to take him down a size with the way he talked. Acted like we were shabby beggars which could not be tolerated. And then he had the nerve to approach Fili.” 

“Don’t,” Fili’s smile fell away entirely. “It doesn’t matter.” 

“But it does! He thought Fili would just fall into his bed! As if being Dain’s second cousin bought him the rights. If I didn’t know he’d win, I would’ve called him out right then and there.” 

The line of Fili’s arm was tense against Ori’s. Under the table, Ori brushed a questioning finger over the top of Fili’s hand. The ferocity and suddenness with which Fili’s hand seized on Ori’s almost drove a surprised squeak from him. 

“But you should’ve seen Fili! Cool as you please, challenges him not with sword, but with fiddle,” Kili went on, seemingly oblivious, “Teya fancied himself a real musician though he could only scratch out a half-decent tune. Still though, far as I knew, Fili’d never even touched one.” 

“Missing a bit of education then,” Dori waggled a finger at all of them. “I’ve been thinking of starting Ori on the harp.” 

“I’m fine without it,” Ori couldn’t bothered to be riled, concentrating too hard on Fili’s grip. 

“Maybe so,” Kili laughed, “but that’s what I’m trying to tell you. That night in the great hall, Teya climbs right up on a table and starts in on some pathetic ballad or another. I’m cringing in the corner when Fili leaps up right next to him easy as you please. He’s got that fiddle there that came from nowhere far as I can get out of him.” 

“Hardly matters,” Fili muttered. 

“It matters, brother mine, because you have never ever kept a secret from me,” Kili put on a pout and wide eyes, “Never. Ever. I am a genius for your secrets. I will find out.” 

“No,” Fili’s fingers sweat in Ori’s, “you won’t.” 

“I will! Anyway, so Fili-mine, he jumps on the table like I said and starts playing the same ballad, but far better. Then he goes into the next song and the next and Teya is scrambling to keep up.” 

“It wasn’t quite that close. Teya isn’t as good as he thinks, but he isn’t terrible,” Fili put in. 

“You made him sound terrible,” Kili was fairly dripping with pride. “Everyone agreed. Including him! Teya decided to go on an orc patrol the next day. They go for months at time out there. Ran clean away.” 

“That’s quite the story,” Dori leaned in. “Now tell me about Dain himself. I met him once when I was a wee lad. Imposing figure.” 

“Oh, well-” 

Ori waited until Fili’s grip ease and then took his leave in the direction of the bathroom. He stopped instead before his desk and paged quickly through the Annals. His suspicious were easily confirmed. Teya was born two decades after the exile to Toya and Emet, both of brown eyes and brown hair. That young and Teya would just be growing a beard. 

Though it had been years, Ori still knew the quality of Fili’s silence and the way the air changed when he walked into a room. 

“He was your lover,” he closed the book with care. “Teya taught you to play the fiddle and you shared your bed with him. But he grew too bold and made a claim to you in public. You had to put a stop to that.” 

“Yes,” Fili was just behind him, reaching out to stroke a hand over the book’s cover. “I liked him. He was brash in public, but kind in private. Everyone else our age had taken a lover by then, even Kili’s wooed his share. I figured it was time I showed an interest or tongues would wag. So I asked for lessons and I learned fast, faster than he would’ve liked, I think. He gifted me the fiddle and that was when I decided to put an end to it. I didn’t realize how badly that must’ve hurt him, for him to shame me like that.” 

“I can imagine it.” If he had had Fili and lost him, what things would he have been capable of? “Did you enjoy your time with him at least?” 

“He was pleasent. But...I didn’t really understand it. ” Fili confessed, breath warm on the back of Ori’s neck. And had he always been like this? Standing too close and touching too much? Did he do it to everyone? Certainly he was always within a fingertip touch of Kili, but now that Ori thought on it that seemed to have extended to him too. 

But no one else that Ori could recall. Not even his own mother. If anything, Fili always stood too far away, too aloof from others. 

“How can you not understand bedplay?” Ori wrinkled his nose. “It’s simple.” 

“It’s a stranger making claim to what isn’t theirs to have,” Fili’s forehead rested on Ori’s shoulder. 

“Now I don’t understand.” 

“I don’t- it’s stupid. I’m sorry, I shouldn’t even- but if I can’t tell you then who can I talk to?” The questions seemed more for himself than Ori. 

“I’m listening,” Ori murmured. 

“I gave myself a long time ago, whether I meant to or no. To lay with someone that I don’t....it felt wrong.” 

“Oh, Fi,” he said, utterly helpless. “You told me you’d get over it.” 

“It’s only grown worse. I’m not made to so easily move my heart.” 

Buried deep under his ribs, didn’t Ori’s heart still beat in that ancient rhythm? Maybe that was why he consorted with Men instead of taking proper dwarf lovers to his bed. 

“I understand.”

“You do,” Fili sagged in relief against him. “Somehow you always do.” 

“And you thought we’d be strangers when we next met,” Ori teased even as his stomach twisted. 

“Ah, well. As I said, I am not made to move my heart so easily. From friends or lovers, it would seem,” Fili pulled away at last and Ori’s breath flowed more easily. “Now, read me from your book, little archivist.” 

“Very grand orders, but I think my prince will be asleep before I reach the end of the first page.” 

“Give me a chapter at least.” 

Fili sat at Ori’s feet as he read from the first of the chapters written in his hand. The tawny head soon lay on his lap. 

“This is not the bathroom,” Kili declared as he stepped inside. “Were you both going to abandon me to Dori forever?” 

“Sit down and listen,” Fili waved a hand at him. “Or go elsewhere with your noise.” 

“You love my noise,” Kili snorted. “But I’m sick of talking.”

With a great heaving sigh, Kili draped himself Fili with his pointed nose stuck firmly under Fili’s chin. 

“Rub my neck,” he demanded, voice muffled in Fili’s throat. “It’s gone all over stiff with keeping watch in the cold last night.” 

“Brat,” Fili laughed, but he did as his brother demanded. There was no betrayal of whatever rumbled beneath Fili’s ribs. Was it a mask perfected or had Fili loved Kili so long that it was a part of him, hiding in plain sight? 

Ori read on and it really wasn’t long before both princes were asleep, a heap of boneless trust at his feet. His voice stuttered to a stop as he looked helplessly down at them. Objectively, they were handsome individually and utterly devastating together. But Ori was not objective. He ran a hand over Fili’s head with possessive affection. 

“They travel onto a town two day’s ride away,” Dori said very quietly from the door. “Kili has requested of me that you go with them.” 

“And you said no, of course.” 

“I said yes,” Dori’s brows were pushed too close together. There was a creamy fold of paper hanging from one of his hands. “I cannot protect you forever, can I?” 

“I’ve been saying so for years. What changed?” 

“Nothing that need worry you just yet,” Dori folded up the paper and tucked it into his pocket. “Go with them and practice that smile of yours. I’d missed the sight of it.” 

“I smile,” Ori touched the corners of his own lips. Upward turned. 

“Mmm,” Dori said nothing more, drifting to the couch to shake Nori awake. “C’mon lazy thing, you’ll miss all the daylight.” 

“That’s rather the point,” Nori groaned, tightening into a ball while Dori slapped at his back and chest to rouse him. Their fight turned to yelling and accusations and then a messy fight. Ori, used to the ruckus, tuned it out and picked up his quill. 

The princes slept on at his feet. 

The next morning, Kili stood over Ori’s bed with a pack hanging from his fingers and a bright laugh, 

“Up, up! If you’re to come with us, then we should be off already.“

“Hmm,” Ori yawned and stretched. “Bed or a journey....” 

“Too late to back out now. On your feet! There’s breakfast ready and then boots to be putting to the ground. Or to the stirrup anyway.” 

“I don’t remember you being so wide eyed in the morning.” 

“Dawn patrol for a year,” apparently done with waiting, Kili grabbed Ori’s forearms and pulled him up. “Cured me of sleeping in for life which I think was the point.” 

Fili was already at the table when Ori stumbled his way in, studiously consuming a huge bowl of oatmeal studded with walnuts and trestleberries. 

“Oi! Those were meant for my ink pots,” Ori picked one of the berries straight out of Fili’s bowl. 

“I’ll buy more when you get back,” Dori tutted. 

“Thought you used ochre for red,” Fili plucked the berry back form Ori’s fingers. “That’s mine, thanks.” 

“Trestle is supposed to make a different shade.” 

“He can’t get much ochre out this way,” Nori put in, startling Ori. 

“Why are you under the table?” 

“He fell asleep there,” grumbled Dori. “Came in drunk at some predawn hour. I wasn’t pouring him back into bed.” 

“There’s a lot of odd stains under here,” Nori said mildly. “Bit of scratchwork too. I can see why you used to find this soothing, brother-mine.” 

“It was soothing because it took me away from your bickering,” Ori stole the berry back and popped in his mouth with a final crunch of his teeth. It was a little over ripe, but the sweetness was pleasant. Fili’s scandalized look was even better. 

Breakfast went on that way with an escalating war of berry theft that ended in stained fingers and mouths. By the time it was over, they were both sorely in need of a wash, Nori had fallen back asleep after being accidently kicked and Dori looked a little too happy to see the back of them until the real moment of leaving came. Then it was business as normal. 

“They’ll be someone in Pelegir willing to see him home?” 

“Absolutely,” Kili put a hand to his heart. “Swear it. Not wise for anyone to take the roads alone.” 

“I know just the dwarf to do the job,” Fili added, then glanced at Ori. “I’d leave that.”   
Ori clutched the Annal to his chest. 

“He’s right,” Kili gave Dori a quick hug, before mounting his pony. “Probably nothing will happen, but if something did, it’s not as if we could replace it.”

“Oh,” Ori looked down at it, “of course.” 

“I’ll keep good watch over it,” Dori held out his hands. “I know it’s worth.” 

“Don’t let Nori near it.” 

“Never,” Dori promised and pried it from Ori’s fingers. He tried not to feel bereft. “Off you go then.” 

“Goodbye,” he surprised himself by reaching out for his brother. Interfering busybody he might be, but Dori tried so hard to be good to him. “I’ll see you very soon.” 

“Sooner gone, sooner back!” Kili urged. 

“He wants to make the next town before dark,” Fili shook his head. “Got spoiled sleeping in a proper bed last night.” 

“I haven’t slept rough in a long time,” Ori admitted. He waited for Fili to mount, then took the offered hand up to settle in front of him. It would make for an uncomfortable ride, but there was no sense getting a third pony for such a short journey. 

Fili’s arms wrapped around him to reach the reins. No sense in getting a third pony, Ori reminded himself. 

“Ready?” Fili’s voice was directly in his ear. “It may be a bit bumpy. This one doesn’t have the smoothest gait.” 

No. Sense. At. All. 

“Ready.” 

It was a special kind of torture for the first few minutes, but one could learn to bear anything and soon Ori settled into it. It helped that they were traveling and the pony really did have a jarring gait that forced him to concentrate on keeping his seat. 

“I had forgotten about the river!” Kili urged his pony down to run closer to the water. “It’s so much faster than the underground streams. Did we really bathe in this maelstrom?” 

“You mostly drowned in it, if I remember rightly,” Fili’s laughter shook through Ori’s back. “When you were mostly a mop of hair then though.” 

“Hair and mouth,” Ori agreed. 

“And I also forgot about you two teaming up on me,” Kili pouted. 

“It took two people to keep you from breaking your neck,” Ori clucked, in his best Dori impression. 

“That’s eerie,” Fili snorted. 

It did set the rather light hearted tone for the rest of their trip. They followed the river and made good time, putting Kili into paroxysms of joy when they rented a proper room in a dwarf-owned inn that night. 

“A tankard of ale, a fine meal and dance with a pretty lass is what I’m after!” 

“Ale and decent food and a flirtation with the old barmaid is probably what you’ll get,” Fili sniffed. 

They did all wind up drinking a good deal more than was advisable, but Kili kept his chair and didn’t run off to flirt. Instead, Fili produced a set of dice and they passed a pleasant hour gambling with their loose change. 

“I’m to bed,” announced Kili when the last of his money disappeared into Ori’s pockets. “I forgot this one was trained up by Nori. I’ll never see that coin back again.” 

“Actually, Nori’s miserable at dice unless he’s weighted them,” Ori said with a grin. Kili clapped him on the shoulder, gave his brother a perfunctory side hug and then disappeared back downstairs to their room. 

“Another round?” Fili rested his chin in his hand, rolling the dice between his fingers. 

 

“I’ll buy.” 

Their talk idled and waned into companionable quiet as drink settled into their bones. Ori had forgotten how their silences fit together and he relished it. The inn buzzed around them and the fire roared. Words slurried through Ori’s head, fitting together then breaking apart. A story would rise out of them eventually, but he was in no rush without his book to record them into. They would be born at their proper hour. 

“So you’ve been sporting then?” Fili said quite suddenly, scattering Ori’s thoughts to the winds. 

“Excuse me?” 

‘From how you spoke yesterday, you’ve had some experience.” And Fili was actually blushing a little, a bridge of red over his nose. Though that could be from the tankard he’d just drained and the pile of it’s mates beside it. 

“Oh. Well. Yes, there’s been some.”

“With who? I can’t imagine Dori approving of any of the local rabble.” 

“It was no one who Dori would approve of,” Ori barked a laugh. “That I can assure you of.” 

“And you cared for them?” 

“Very much, but they were never intended to last long. Couldn’t, really.” 

“How? How can you just...be naked with someone that you don’t love?” 

“How can you define love so narrowly?” Ori frowned. “Did we not grow up on the same stories? See the same marriages and shared beds?” 

“We did, but I don’t...is there something wrong with me?” 

“Nothing.”  
“You said that a bit too fast.” 

It was a perfect opportunity. Half-drowsy with drink, couldn’t Ori make the offer? Who better than Ori to teach his prince how to enjoy a warm body beside his? And no one would be hurt, not truly. 

“There is nothing wrong with you,” Ori finished his drink, washing away the insidious idea. “So you don’t want to take a bedmate? Plenty of people don’t.” 

“Hm,” Fili leaned back in his chair with a different sort of light in his eyes. “But you do.” 

“I do,” Ori agreed. 

“Hm,” Fili said again. 

“What?” 

“It’s getting late. I’m for sleep, you?” 

They found Kili plastered across one of the room’s beds with his arms spread akimbo. A tiny third cot had been jammed by the door and it sagged alarmingly when Ori sat down on it. He could see the offer forming in Fili’s mouth and he made a show of yawning. There were only so many temptations he could resist in a day. 

Mahal, he thought as he brought the blankets up around his head, what did I do to deserve this? 

The second day’s travel lost a little of the merriment thanks to whopping headaches. Ori took his turn at the reigns while Fili slumped blurry-eyed against his back. 

“I’ll be a mess of aches by the time we get there,” he complained. “What’ve you been eating?” 

“Not nearly enough since we left the mountain,” Kili frowned, reaching out to poke at Fili, who swatted at him lazily. “It’s all skin and bone under that armor, I’ll bet.” 

“Riding kills my appetite,” Fili grumbled. 

“Mother would have your braids if she knew.”   
“But she doesn’t and she won’t. Leave off.” 

“You’re worrying on something,” Kili determined. 

“Of course, I am.” 

“Well, more than the obvious.” 

“What obvious?” Ori asked, but the brothers seemed to have forgotten all about it him. 

“There’s nothing.” 

“Nothing like that fiddle?” Kili pressed. “I’m not an idiot, Fi. No matter what you think.” 

“I don’t think you’re an idiot.” 

“Yes, you do. Or worse, you don’t trust me.” 

“You know that I do,” Fili groaned.

“Was the fiddle a gift from someone?” 

And Ori tightened his hands in the reigns. He had heard that tone before from his own mouth. He knew it well. 

“You’re jealous,” it sprang from Ori’s mouth before he could censor it. 

“Am not,” Kili snapped. “Wait. Jealous of what?” 

“I don’t know, but you sound like a jilted lover is what,” Ori felt Fili’s quick intake of breath as if he’d been slapped. The forest itself seemed to hold it’s breath.

Only to have the quiet dashed by the bright bells of Kili’s laughter. 

“Always with the quick joke,” Kili shook his head, unfettered hair scattering in every direction. It was almost distracting enough that Ori missed the dark look that fled across his face. “When I asked Dori if you could come, I forgot it meant I’d be outnumbered.” 

“Serves you right, for once,” Fili said lightly.   
“I know when I’m not wanted,” pointing his nose dramatically in the air, Kili applied his heels to his pony’s side. “I’ll scout ahead, meet you at the next marker?” 

“Keep your wits about you. If I have to explain to Ma how you got carried off by bandits....”

“Bandits on this path? I’m more likely to be one then to find one.” 

With that, he was gone. 

“Sorry,” Ori wiped a hand over his face. A gust of a sigh painted the back of his neck. 

“What for? He’ll get bored of his own company soon enough. Be back before we’re even thinking about our lunch.” 

“Tell me about the music then.” 

“What about it?” 

“What were you playing when I met up with you?” 

“Oh, that. I think it’s a drinking song. I don’t recognize all the Khuzdal in it, but there’s definitely ale.” 

“I could translate.” 

He wasn’t expecting Fili to sing, soft and sweet. It took Ori back almost immediately to their boyhood together. How often had their families spent their evenings together with their parents giving their children what remained of their culture in song? Ori had learned his family tree in his mother’s easy rhythms, the cadence drummed into his feet. Nori had the best voice of all of them, a throaty baritone that carried the harmony of their trio along. For years, Ori had trilled above him as a weedy soprano only to sink into a middling alto-baritone forever seeking notes. 

Fili and Kili has, as in all things, been far better together than apart with Fili’s lower voice leading Kili’s clear heights to an intimate harmony. Even now with Kili far ahead of them, Ori could hear the places he should be in Fili’s song. 

“It isn’t quite a drinking song,” he stared down the path, letting the translation spool out before him. “But it is a joyous one. A battle of insurmountable odds won with cleverness. Hoi and his band of rabble.” 

“I remember that one!” Fili straightened a little. “Hoi faces down the King of Gondor’s army. Uncle told us that one. I found another song in the same book, it’s like this....” 

It became a bit of a game with Fili singing just a few words and Ori making guesses as to the rest of it. The morning brightened and their hangovers faded. Just as Fili predicted, Kili came riding back before lunch with a lie on his lips to assuade his pride. They ate together off the road with Kili joining in the game. He didn’t have a memory for songs, but he could remember the sound of every curse uttered by his Uncle. 

“He called his own cousin that?” Ori spluttered.

“Why?” Kili grinned. “What does it mean?” 

“It involves a badger, piss and a creative amount of shoving.” 

Their early slowness caught up with them that night and they were forced to make camp. At least the season was kindly warm and the wood around them dry enough for a decent fire. 

“And look what I caught while you two were taking your time!” Kili produced two fat coneys. “So we’ll have a good supper.” 

None of them were cooks, but it didn’t take culinary genius to spit roast. There was salt enough to smooth over any missteps anyway. Afterwards, Fili took out his fiddle and played as if in apology. With game acceptance, Kili sang along and tossed acorns at Ori’s head until he joined in. 

They ranged their bedrolls around the dying embers of the fire and none made any pretense of trying to stay awake or set watches. Their camp was small and discreet enough that none would bother with them anyway. The day’s riding after hard drinking caught up with Ori and he sank right into the dreamless dark. 

The sky was only just turning that neon shade of blue before true sunrise when he was awakened. His nose told him all was safe long before he could pry open his eyes to make out Fili’s looming over him. 

“Why are you awake?” Ori grumbled. “Why am I?” 

Fili said nothing, his face in shadow. For a breathless pause, Ori considered and discarded a hundred possible reasons for this and none of them good. Certainly, none of them had been Fili leaning in and kissing him with a sort of questioning delicacy. The rock poking him in the side, the cold air spilling into his bedroll and tickling of Fili’s moustache against his own bare upper lip insisted that Ori wasn’t dreaming. 

Every nerve in his body flared to life at once, saturated in heat and confusion. Fili stopped, moving just far enough away that he could see Ori’s face. When Ori started to ask a question, Fili put a finger to his lips and shook his head. He pointed his chin over to Kili’s lightly snoring body. Then back to Ori he tilted his head and lifted his eyebrows. 

Asking for permission. 

For what? 

Just this once? As an experiment? 

Did it matter? 

No, it didn’t. Ori reached up for him, took the beloved face between his hands and leaned up to start the kiss over again. Fili’s hair fell in a curtain between them, blocking out the light and filling Ori’s nose with the sweet and musty scent of him. The press of Fili’s lips was dry, but very warm. All Ori wanted was to have closer, have more of this before it disappeared as swiftly as it had come. He slid one hand from cheek to neck, rubbing the pad of his thumb over the sharp line of Fili’s jaw. 

A very soft pleased sound dropped from Fili’s mouth into Ori’s. Such a small thing, but Ori had never been more aroused in all his life. Then Fili pulled away again until the tips of their noses brushed together. His eyes were closed, breathing a little ragged. Deprived of words, Ori could only reassure him with the brush of his thumb. 

Eventually, Fili tilted his head until their foreheads rested together and Ori could gather him into a full bodied hug. 

“It’s all right,” he murmured as quietly as he could. “It’s all fine.” 

“I thought-” Fili began and then lapsed into silence. For the best. Ori didn’t really want to know what Fili had been thinking. Doubtless it had been fumbling, misguided and a little selfish. Knowing it would tarnish the sweetness of the moment. 

They stayed like that a little longer, their breath mingling. 

“Sorry,” the word whispered out between them, curdling the remaining sweetness of the moment. 

“It’s all fine,” Ori repeated and he even meant it a little. 

“It isn’t,” Fili acknowledged with a sad smile. He leaned back in and brushed the lightest of kisses just at the corner of Ori’s lips. “My dearest friend.”

“Always.”

Fili slunk away into the grey slanting light. Ori turned over, giving him his back so he could mourn in private. Instead, his gaze fell over Kili and found him wide awake. His eyes glittered and they were following Fili’s retreat and then fell back to Ori in silent question. 

Ori shook his head and Kili released an audible breath. It looked like relief. Then he paused, eyebrows raised in bemusement. 

If it was kindness or cruelty or the insensibility of an abiding heart, Ori couldn’t say what he did it. It could’ve gone so badly or been misunderstood or ruined a lifetime of brotherly love. 

“You,” he mouthed across the breaking dawn. “Not me. Always you.”

He closed his eyes against Kili’s face. Pulled the blanket over his face and tried not to hear footsteps through the grass and a hushed conversation that turned to shouts and then hush again. 

He fell asleep, to numb himself against his companions finally falling in love. 

By the time he woke, the camp was broken and one of the ponies was gone, 

“Fili’s gone ahead,” Kili’s entire body was a struck tuning fork, humming with joy. “Come on, you can eat while we ride.” 

Ori took the hard cheese and bread that Kili offered and then his hand to take his mount. Kili didn’t lean against him or whisper into his ear or ease him into a lovely silence. Instead, he chattered and made funny little observations. A petty part of Ori resisted for the first few minutes, but Kili was so genuinely gleeful and unconscious of Ori’s deep aches that he gave in and found a laugh. 

“Ah, there we are,” Kili turned the pony down a winding road into a busy town. “We’re looking for a sign with a dwarf in hat with bells.” 

“Do you know what part of town it’s meant to be in?” 

“Uncle is many things, but a navigator isn’t one of them. That’s all we’ve got to work with.” 

“Lovely,” Ori muttered, scanning the shops as they rode by. 

It took the better part of an hour to find the little shop with it’s brightly painted sign. Through the window, Ori could make out an array of moving parts and the laughter of very small children. 

“A toy shop?” He frowned. “What’re we doing here?” 

“Delivering!” Kili rifled through his pack, pulled out a familiar looking letter and jumped down. “Come on, come on, you’ll love this!” 

Ori followed Kili inside to discover one of the most fantastic stores he’d ever seen. It was jammed with games, whirligigs and stuffed toys. A mine cart rattled down a track to the glee of a clutch of kids, who cheered when it crashed onto the floor and spilled candy over the floor. 

“Don’t stomp over each other!” A boisterous dwarf with a winged hat and the best mustache that Ori had ever seen emerged from under the rabble with a child, both apparently human, on each shoulder. “AH! Look at who’s come back at last! Kiki!” 

“Kili,” Kili flushed red. “No one one calls me that anymore. Ori, this is Bofur. Bofur, this is my friend, Ori.” 

“Ofrai’s youngest?” 

“At your service,” Ori bowed. 

“Should be me at yours! Your ma saved me from a tight spot some years back with a sharp axe and a kind word. She was an amazing lady.” 

“I always thought so.” 

“Off now,” Bofur gently set his passengers down. “For you boys, the shop is closed and my table open. My brother already talked with Fili and they’re tracking down Bifur. We’ll have a feast, I’m sure.”

“Good!” Kili fairly bounced. “There’s much to celebrate.” 

Ori hated him for a moment. 

“You’re our scribe, aren’t you?” Bofur put a hand to his shoulder. “Your ma must’ve been proud.” 

“I don’t know about that. I think she wanted a warrior after her healer and...well. Whatever Nori is going to be. But she liked that I had a calling.” 

“Proud,” Bofur repeated. “I know a few things about mothers and sons.” 

An immense red-haired dwarf dominated the back room, stirring a dozen pots and once while Bofur set the table in a looping jig. Fili arrived not long after, all sly smiles for Kili and apologetic slanted looks at Ori. It would have been agony, but Bofur kept juggling apples or tossing grapes into Bombur’s mouth in a distracting, dizzying display. 

Maybe, Ori realized as he bit into a slice of pie that curled his toes in delight, he just wasn’t the kind made for sorrow. Or maybe he had never expected anything and so was satisfied with the tiny taste of something. 

Maybe, he was even a little satisfied by how happy Fili was. For the first time, he saw Fili smile and laugh without a hint of worry. Ironically, they’d never looked more like brothers with their matching grins and warring forks as they fought over the last piece of pie. 

“Come smoke with me,” Bofur tugged at Ori’s sleeve. “I see a pipe in your belt and no one elses.” 

“I don’t bother with it much unless-” 

“Only the finest,” a dangling pouch of Flani’s Finest and Ori was won. He followed Bofur into the night and leaned with him against a crumbling stone wall. 

Apparently, Bofur respected the silent ritual of packing and lighting, even the quiet of the first puff with the exhale of smoke that made the air go hazy around them. 

“Have they told you what they’re here for yet?” 

“No,” Ori stood up a little straighter. “Do you know?” 

Bofur drew out the letter that Kili had taken from his pack. Out of it’s envelope, Ori placed it. It had the same look as the one Dori had held when he sent him off on this trip

“They’ve got a letter for you in their packs too.” 

“Why not just give it to me?” 

“I imagine because they wanted to have a fun little jaunt, but they know if you know this, then you’d have to stay behind and start your next chapter. But the trip has been made. Kili asked me to see you back tomorrow morning. Said Fili thought I’d do for a perfect guard for you.” 

“When did he say that? For that matter, when did he give you the letter?” 

“Funny boy, our Kili,” Bofur dance the letter between his fingers. “Silly and twittering as a bird most of the time, but something of a wolf underneath. He gets that from his ma, come to that. No one looks too hard at the fool.” 

“You call your store Foolish Dwarf. Should I be looking harder at you then?” 

“Almost certainly,” Bofur blew a streak of smoke outward. “But I don’t think you will. I know hegraebeorth when I see it.” 

“I’m not married.” 

“No,” Bofur grimaced. “But then, you don’t have to be, do you? To bad, you’re a good looking lad.” 

The conversation two nights gone now, clicked into place for Ori and he groaned. He’d thought Fili had been drunkenly inviting a proposition and the kiss had only confirmed the theory until now. 

“He was trying to set me up with you! Oh, this is embarrassing.” 

“Why?” Bofur laughed. “He means well and I would guess you have no trouble filling your bed if you wanted to.” 

“And you’d be interested in me? You’ve only just met me.” 

“Ah, well. I can tell you’re a thoughtful type, ready with a smile if not a word. I like ‘em on the short side anyway. But there’s others out there and I need a friend as much as a bedfellow.” 

“I think a friend would be a good thing to have right now,” Ori took a long drag on his pipe and blew out a perfect ring. “And the company home would be much appreciated.” 

“Glad we’ve settled that. Now about the letter.”

“The letter,” Ori reached for it and Bofur placed it gingerly in his hand. 

The lines were beautifully penned, but short and impersonal. It was easy to imagine Thorin’s dark head bent over thick paper and writing dozens of them. 

“He wants to retake Erebor.” 

“Aye,” Bofur sighed. “And we’ll be off to do it, won’t we?” 

“Of course!” Ori said without a second thought. “I can’t record the history without being there. Not this time.” 

“It will be a dangerous trip.” 

“So it will,” Ori smiled. “But my mother always did want a warrior.” 

He expected they would all say yes. All the exiles who sent him chatty letters full of old stories and desire. He thought they would arrive to their cozy meeting place a year later and find it brimming. Instead, he found himself in a small party with his ink fresh on a contract with too much empty space. 

He wanted to have faith. They would survive. They would take back the mountain that should always have been their home. But just in case. Well. He’d left the Annal behind for a much shorter trip, hadn’t he? 

On careful feet, he tiptoed between slumbering bodies. The hobbit had a library, messy and fascinating, but Ori wasn’t looking for the interesting books. He searched for the dustiest corner, the most boring of tomes that wouldn’t be stirred. He touched the locket, warm under his shirt and steady a companion as his book. The trip would be long and there were all sort of folk out in the world, many of them thieves. Ori took the necklace off and squeezed the locket tight in his hand before sliding it down into the binding of the Annal. Then tucked the book in behind it's dull brethren as gently as a child being put to bed. 

“You would be here.” 

Ori spun on his heels, eyes wide and heart in his throat. Fili stood in the doorway, his hair all undone from his braids and his eyes luminescent in the firelight. 

“You should be sleeping,” Ori said gently. 

“So should you,” Fili held out a hand and Ori took it. He always would. “I’m too excited to sleep.” 

“It’s going to be an adventure,” he agreed. 

“I’ll be a prince truly after this,” the old shadows were still waiting, it seemed. Ori had hoped that at least being with Kili would banish them, but there they were under Fili’s eyes again. 

“Then you’ll need a valet,” Ori squared his shoulders. “Ori, at your service.” 

“I don’t need you to serve me.”

“Well, you need someone to set your mop to rights and fix your shirt buttons right now. So let me serve for the moment and you can do mine if it will ease your guilt.” 

“Ori-” 

“Braids, shirt.” He squared his shoulders. “Perhaps, the last of the hobbit’s ale.” 

Fili let himself be led away and Ori didn’t indulge himself by looking over his shoulder. The book would stay where it was meant to until he returned for it. He could keep his prince and their history safe at the same time.


	3. Preservation

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Warning: handling of the dead, no gore

The snow hushed their wails and songs to a thin whisper. Ori watched with numb confusion as the least wounded of their party gathered around Thorin’s limp body and raised it up to the fading light. Almost as one, they carried their fallen leader across the ice and toward the crumbled stairs. 

The bright head of the elven lass dipped low and rose back up, Kili in her arms as though all his armor and bulk weighed no more than a feather. She followed them at a distance, respectful of their slow gait though she might’ve surpassed them in an instant. Within moments, they were all out of sight. 

Ori fell to his knees into the snow. They had laid Fili out beside his brother, but now he was alone and far too pale. With shaking hands, Ori reached out to touch to bloodless cheek. His heart beat so fast that he thought it might give out altogether. 

“My prince,” Ori dipped his head until their foreheads touched and the tears fell, freezing as they landed on Fili’s skin.

“C’mon now, lad,” a hand settled gently on Ori’s shoulder. “You can’t stay here.” 

“We have to get him to the Vaults,” Ori didn’t move. “Where are the others?” 

“There aren’t enough of us and it’s growing dark. We’ll have to come back from him in the morning,” Bofur’s voice was thick with feeling. “We’ll come first thing.” 

“I won’t leave him in the cold alone,” Ori’s nose trailed the arch of Fili’s, before sitting up to look blearily at Bofur. “He hated the cold. Not that he’d ever say, but I could tell. I made Nori teach me how to light a fire even with damp wood to ward it away from him.” 

“He’s beyond the cold now,” Bofur tugged at Ori’s coat. “You’ll freeze if you stay yourself tonight. Even you can’t make a fire in this forsaken place.” 

“I won’t leave him.” 

“He’s already gone.” 

Ori tore away from Bofur’s grip. 

“Maybe so, but I won’t abandon his body to the carrion eaters. He deserves better than that.” 

He heard Bofur’s steps crunch back over the snow. Ori promptly forgot all about him, giving Fili his full attention. The armor hid the worst of the killing blow and someone had been tender enough to close his staring eyes. But he still looked dead. Even in sleep, there would have been the animation of breathing, the flickering of eyes beneath the lids and the restless twitching of his right hand which never could settle even in the deepest slumber. 

“I had so many stories left to tell you,” Ori swallowed thickly. “There was no time, running every which way here, but I thought about it all the time. I almost started when we were imprisoned, but your cell was too far from mine and the others would’ve heard. I wish I hadn’t been embarrassed now. I wish I could’ve told you one last tale.”

The wind stirred through the snow as his only reply. Resolving himself, Ori gently moved Fili’s head into his lap. The golden hair was matted with dirt, ice and blood, but Ori’s fingers were too numb to do more than rest among the curls. 

“Many years ago, there was a young boy, who feared noise and preferred to hide under tables than play with a sword. He thought he would spend his life reading in warm dark places, watching his mother and brothers move through the world. It didn’t seem like such a bad life. 

“But a hand intruded into the darkness and a voice as calm and sweet as any he had ever heard. The prince that belonged to that hand was strong and fierce, but he didn’t mind spending time under a table with the other boy. They shared raisins and stories and eventually, they crawled out from under that table and ran free under the sun. They taught each other many things and kept each other safe from all the tiny troubles of a child’s world.” 

Even now, at the end of it all, it took Ori no small amount of courage to finish. But it needed to be said out loud at last. Though it was too late and there was no one left to hear, 

“That boy under the table would’ve led an uneventful life, if he hadn’t met his prince. He might even have been happy. But he would never have known what it was to love someone. 

“I love you, Fili. My hegraebeorth. There will never be another for me, in this world or the next.” 

He heaved in a frigid breath and let it out in a stream that billowed around his face. A knot had begun to tie itself in his chest, a hardened bundle of sorrow. He closed his eyes and tried to conjure memories of a warmer time to keep himself from freezing solid. A sort of daze came over him, lulling him nearly to sleep. 

“Ori!” Arms fastened around him in a hard hug, startling him back to reality. “Have you lost your senses? Give that here!” 

A solid wall of heat surrounded him, the heaviness of a fur-lined cloak fresh off someone’s back. 

“I told you,” Bofur was saying from a distance. 

“I thought he had more sense than this,” and it was Dori. Dori’s cloak that smelled of herbs and spilled ale. 

“Open those eyes,” someone else coaxed. “I know you’re awake.” 

“Leave me alone,” he grumbled. 

“We’ve come to take you both home,” rough fingers on his chin. “Eyes open.” 

Reluctantly, Ori tried to open his eyes and found it harder than it should’ve been. He was shocked to find Nori before him, eyes wide in fear. That was nearly enough rouse him. He couldn’t remember the last time he’d seen Nori afraid of anything. 

“What’re you doing here? Is it morning already?” 

“Foolish boy,” Nori was shaking him a little now and Ori raised his hands to fight him off, but they were too heavy to lift. “We thought you’d already gone back to Erebor or we never would’ve left with the rest. You’re lucky Bofur spotted you and came to get us.” 

“I-” 

“If you had asked for our help, we would’ve given it.” 

“You were hurt,” Ori recalled, his mind wasn’t working as it should, sluggish and dim. “You couldn’t help.” 

“Scratches,” Nori dismissed. “And I would’ve helped even if my own arm lay in the snow. Same with Dori. The others would’ve too if they understood what you were about.” 

“They wanted to leave him here.” 

“No one wanted that, Ori. It was just a basic survival decision, but you’ve never been good with those.” 

“Hey,” he protested weakly. Someone was shifting the heavy weight from out his lap, freeing him of the burden. 

“Don’t argue with me. You’re half dead in the snow right now, I think that proves me right and you a fool.” 

“But-” 

“Leave off,” Dori cuffed Nor gently on the head. “Let’s get on with this or we’ll never make it back.” 

“Can you walk?” Bofur offered his arms to Ori. “Only it’ll be hard going if we have to carry you as well.” 

“I can,” Ori reached out and let himself be pulled to his feet. It was unsteady at first, but he was able to stay upright. 

He watched as Nori and Dori worked together to swing Fili’s body onto a makeshift stretcher and stand as one. They moved as though they always worked so well together and never bickered a day in their lives. With Bofur lending a hand, they were soon under way. Ori walked beside them and then in front as he warmed a little, clearing away dangerous debris. The journey was a treacherous one and there was no energy to spare for talk. 

Erebor welcomed them with the line of the company, hats off and arms open to help. They took the stretcher and disappeared down a winding hallway that must lead to the Vault of the Dead. 

The bodies would lie in state for two days, before being interred forever in the walls of the Vault. Only those closest to them should be there for the preparation of the bodies. Ori made to follow the procession. 

“First, a hot bat and a full meal,” Dori insisted. “A few hours sleep if you can manage it. No one doubts your dedication, but it’ll do no one any good if you die about it.” 

“But-” 

“No one will touch him, lad. There was never any doubt that you were his attendant on this last journey. Dwalin has already cared for Thorin.” 

“Kili?” 

“There’s some debate about that, but that’s for you to know at a more decent hour.” 

All at once, Ori was overcome by fatigue and he could only follow where he was led. Nori helped him undress when his fingers proved useless. Dori spoon fed him dinner as though he was still a very small child. Bofur held blankets before a hot fire and wrapped him in tight in their embrace, before settling him in a chair. 

The blessing of sleep took him. When he woke, he found his brothers asleep sitting up across from him on a low, half-rotted couch and Bofur sprawled on a hearthrug. The grief was still a choking thing, the knot as hard as granite under his ribs. But it warred with an intensity of love and gratitude that Ori had never known before. He heaved up off the chair and crawled in between his brothers. Dori, only half-awakening, pulled him into a suffocating hug and Ori fell into it. 

“I love you,” Ori told him, because if he could say it to the dead than the living should know. “And you too, Nori.” 

“Sleeping,” Nori grumbled, but he curled against Ori’s back and pressed a rough kiss to his temple. “Brat.” 

He woke a second time to the smell of sizzling meat and bread. A scavenged table stood where Bofur had slept and a small feast was spread over it. Nori had disappeared, but Dori and Bofur were eating along with Balin, who was explaining something around his mouthful of sausage. The appearance of his mentor made Ori keenly aware of yesterday’s stupidity and he sank into the space left for him. Balin spared Ori a sympathetic look. 

“Bard and his people will be using the third largest cleared hall for now,” Balin continued. “Dain has agreed that it’s the best way to proceed. We won’t turn our backs as backs were turned upon us. It will take some time to rebuild for every party. For Erebor, it begins in the treasure halls. The gold must be counted and divided as fairly as can be managed.” 

“I think I can speak for all the sons of Ofrai that we do not need our full share if some of it can be used to do good here,” Dori said, glancing at Ori, who could only nod weakly. 

“She would be proud of you,” Balin smiled weakly. “And we will take that into our accounting. No decisions will be made without your individual agreement, but even half of each of your shares will make you very wealthy.” 

“Huzzah for that,” Bofur said flatly. 

“Yes,” Balin looked down at his plate, spearing a sausage on his fork which he ate mchancilly. Then he dropped his fork entirely as if he could put it off no longer. “Then there are these.” 

From his jacket, Balin pulled three sealed letters. The wax was the dull grey of the scavenged candles even now sitting at their table and unmarked. The paper, Ori recognized immediately. He had found it himself in the search for the Arkenstone, unearthing a beautiful writing desk from a mound of gold. Enclosed had been soft white linen paper, a pot of deep black ink, and a fine quill. The ink had long since dried, of course, but he knew the ways of bringing old pigments back to life. He had been so pleased at the discovery that he had nearly broken his neck to show it off to Fili. 

_“A treasure worth a thousand precious gems to you,” Fili laughed, though it was tired and rough. “Now you can update your records with all of my heroic deeds.”_

_“That’ll fill half of a half of one page to be sure, but what to do with the rest?” Kili limped up behind his brother, hooking his chin over Fili’s shoulder._

_“How are you?” Fili asked, reaching a hand up to dare a caress to Kili’s cheek. “You should be resting.”_

_“I won’t rest while this happens,” Kili’s eyes drifted closed. “I can’t.”_

_“I know,” Fili frowned. “But you can have a little something to eat, maybe?”_

_“Only if you both sit and eat with me. Agreed?”_

_Fili looked to Ori, who nodded._

_“Fine, stay put. I’ll get us something.”_

_Fili climbed a hill of coins that cascaded under his feet. Kili swayed alarmingly and Ori stepped in under on his arms._

_“Let’s find somewhere to sit.”_

_They made a reasonable go of it on some fractured rubble. Kili sagged against the broken pillar, his skin tinged grey._

_“It has been a very long fortnight,” Kili groaned and scrubbed at his face._

_“I thought I might not see you again,” Ori admitted. “When Thorin ordered you to stay.”_

_“I thought that too for a while there. But luck and elven beauties were on my side.”_

_“She is very...” Ori couldn’t find the word and lapsed into silence._

_“She is at that,” Kili reached over to tug at Ori’s beard. “You don’t have to like her, but don’t go disliking her for whatever is going on in that head of yours, all right?”_

_“All right,” Ori closed his hand over Kili’s._

_“Might I ask a favor of you?” Kili turned somber, letting go all at once._

_“What is it?”_

_“Can I borrow your paper and ink?”_

_“Really?” Ori raised his eyebrows. “Whatever for?”_

_“A few scribbles. You know I’m not much of a correspondent, but sometimes needs must,” the smile was an old one, charming and boyish._

_“Try not to use it all. Who knows when I’ll come by this again?”_

_“You’re our scribe. Paper and ink will find you,” Kili reached out and Ori handed over his prize._

_“There you are,” Fili made his way back toward them, holding out a basket. “Bombur will have to be careful with our supplies, but tonight at least we have half a loaf of stale bread and some kind of cheese, don’t look to closely at it.”_

_“A feast,” Kili beamed at him and Fili’s answering smile was a beacon in the darkness._

__

“We found them in an oilskin under Kili’s breastplate. There is one for each of us,” Balin hesitated. “He requested that Fili be the one to care for his body, but in the absence of his brother than that it should fall to Tauriel.” 

“He wants that---that---hussy!” Dori sputtered. “But she doesn’t know our ways.” 

“Then I will show her,” Ori took his letter from the pile. It was noticeably thicker than the others. 

“There are some who would say an elf has no business in the Vault of the Dead,” Balin looked at Ori with the same look he’d once used after posing a difficult riddle in their lessons. 

“There are some who lay dead because of ancient grudges,” Ori clutched the letter tightly. “Let those who knew how to let go of such things be tended to by hands that loved them.” 

“Well said,” Bofur clapped Ori on the back. 

Ori heard little else of what was said. He finished eating though it was dust in his mouth. Then he took his letter to the quietest space he could find and opened it. There was a second letter within, unaddressed and he set it aside. 

Unfolding his papers, there was Kili’s messy hand and Ori had to bite back a sob just at the sight of it. He could picture a dark head bent intently over the paper, spilling blotches everywhere. 

**To our fair scribe,**

**I hope that you are reading this many years from now while I laugh over it in remembrance. How silly I was to sit, finally in my true home, and waste time writing pointless notes. I hope that’s true.**

**More likely though, I’m dead. Some small part of me fears it might even be at my Uncle’s own hand. I can think of no worse fate, Mahal save me from it.**

**In the others’ notes, I have issued my thanks for their kindnesses to me and reminisced about some shared memories. If any should ask you what your note contained, talk of the day you bandaged my skinned knee by the river, so my mother wouldn’t know that I had been out when I was meant to be home or the time I stole that bottle of whiskey when we were far too little for it and we shared it and got terrible headaches.**

**It would only bruise feelings for them to know that your letter is different.**

**For if I’m dead, there are two possibilities: that Fili died as well or he lives and might as well be dead for the heaviness of his grief. I want to remind you that many years ago, I promised you I’d watch over him and I did my best. Now I return the care of the one we both love back to you.**

**If he lives, please Mahal I pray that he does, then he is yours now and you must ensure that he does not give into grief. This is not conceit, but a very real possibility that he confided in me long ago. I told him then what I tell you now: You can survive a broken heart.**

**I will tell you what you and Fili have never understood: there are many kinds of love. You can give your heart and still turn your eyes to others. You can love your best friend and your brother and your lover. One person cannot be all things to another. Fili has been more to me than perhaps he should have been. Certainly I’ve been more to him than I would’ve thought possible. It does not have to be that way.**

**What I think you should know is that he loves you. Without me, there will be room for you. Do not hesitate in some imagined disapproval from beyond the grave. Be to each other what you will.**

**Give him the enclosed letter. I trust no one else in it’s delivery.**

**If he has died, [here there was a blotch of ink where the quill had paused too long] please take care of his body. You know which rituals he likes and which he thinks are ridiculous. Plait a braid for me, if you would. Four strands and clover knot. I would say more, but the thought of him gone cannot be born, not for another moment.**

**It occurs to me in this late, perhaps last, hour that I owe you much of my happiness. I can only hope that fate repays you where I could not. You always acted as though my kind feelings toward you were the beginning of a prank and that your kindnesses to me were ignored or misunderstood. Know that I saw them clearly and appreciated them for what they were. Neither Fili nor I could boast many friends who cared for us because we were Kili and Fili rather than who we might become. I have never forgotten the boy who crawled out from under a table to keep an eye on me when I was walking on rooftops. I count him among my closest friends.**

**I suppose I can only end by saying that I’m sorry to no longer be at your service.**

**Kili**

****

With shaking hands, Ori picked up the enclosed letter. He should consign it to the fires or take it with him to tuck in with Fili’s body. But they were gone, beyond the control of mere words, and if this was all that was left, then Ori would have it. 

**  
Fi, **

**The night before all this begun, we lay in a field of flowers and you told me a silly story of lords and prophecies and hills. You said it was the meadow of Today and I laughed at you until you swatted at me.**

**I think of that often, how after, we stripped naked and you straddled me. You looked like a god as you rode me with your hair loose and full of flowers.**

**I am with Mahal now, but do not rush to join me. I have so many memories to sustain me. Bring me a life well lived when you come.**

**I love you. I love you. A thousand times, I love you.**

****

 

Ori held the letter away from him so that his tears would not send the ink running until he could safely he tuck one letter into the other. There would be time for this all later. One of his princes had given him an order. 

“I’m ready,” he told Balin and they walked together to the Vault of the Dead. 

“We’ve left everything for you inside,” Balin touched the huge doors. “Dwalin has already seen to Thorin, but the boys are still resting on the preparation tables. I don’t know where the elf lass has gotten herself too or if she will even come, so I wouldn’t recommend waiting on her.” 

“I can take care of both of them if it comes to it,” Ori said with a confidence he didn’t feel. 

“You’re a brave one,” Balin sighed. “Foolish and brave. Cut from the same cloth as them.” 

He walked through the doors rather than respond to that. They shut behind him with a loud clanging and left him alone. Every dwarven enclave had a Vault. Where Ori had grown up, it had been a shabby sort of thing in a catacomb an hour’s walk from town. That was where his mother rested and the dwarf that had sired him. 

The Erebor’s Vault was an echoing cavern with hundreds of beautifully carved squares in the wall, each filled with names. Behind them, the bones of a hundred generations lay undisturbed. Smaug’s interest must never have extended to this austere place. 

In the center of the room were the viewing altars. As Balin had said, Thorin already rested on one and Ori paused there to pay his respects. The crown lay on his head and his sword had been folded into his hands. 

“Good night, King,” Ori sketched a bow then turned his back on Thorin. 

The preparation tables were set into niches in the wall, well lit by torches. Fili and Kili had been laid out with their heavy armor removed and their hands set to their sides. There were bowls of water, a stack of bandages, a small pile of treasures and their weapons laid on a table. 

“Hello, my friends,” Ori stood between them and tried to find a way to breath, but the knot was growing, threatening to block his airways entirely. 

“Are you Ori?” 

He hadn’t heard the heavy doors open or close or even her steps upon the stone, but there she was at his side. He had to crane his neck to see her stiff expression. 

“I am.” 

“What do we do?” 

“What would you do if they were elves?”

“We would wash their bodies in the waters of their homelands.” 

“We start just the same way,” he sucked in a breath and let it out then another and another. He couldn’t afford to let go when he had to show her the way. “All that they were wearing when they died must be cast into a fire, so we’ll set it aside for that. They will have fresh clothes in death.” 

She nodded grimly and went to stand beside Kili. She put her hands on his coat, clenching at the fabric with white knuckled desperation. Her fingers shook so badly that even Ori could see them. 

“May I make a proposal?” She asked thickly. 

“Yes?” 

“Would it be such a horrible thing if we switched this particular role? I’m sure that whatever comes after, I can do, but this...” 

“Yes,” Ori felt a massive weight roll of of him. “Absolutely.” 

It was far easier to strip Kili down and wash him and it was still one of the hardest things he had ever done. The last time he had seen Kili naked, they had been laughing as they swam in Rivendell’s fountains. Ori wished that this memory would not overwrite that one. He rushed to redress him in royal robes that some quick fingers had tailored to fit. Most likely Gloin, who had a deft hand at such things if pushed into it. 

“Now what?” Tauriel tugged Fili’s belt into place and stood back. 

“Now we braid their hair. Kili is simple. One fat braid made of three braids of three strands each on either side of his face. Then those woven together and tied at the bottom with sapphires. The rest of his hair gathered back into the silver clasp at the back.” 

“What do they mean?” She searched the table, finding a brush and comb. 

“Second son of a high ranking lady, unmarried, without heirs. Those are the braids. The sapphires were just a personal favorite and the clasp was a gift from Thorin.” 

“He liked sapphires?” Her long fingers sorted easily through the pile of gems. 

“More than any other kind of stone, but he never was much of one for jewelry. I only know because Fili gave him a knife once with a sapphire in the hilt,” Ori thought it prudent to leave out that Kili had held the dagger up to Fili’s face with a broad smile and remarked that the shade was a perfect match. Instead, he took his time selecting a wide tooth comb that wouldn’t make a mess of Fili’s curls. 

“I knew so little of him,” she turned a sapphire over and over in her hand. “How could I love someone that I barely knew?” 

“He was handsome, charming and kind. Clever too, when he paused to think about something instead of rushing in head long, ” Ori shrugged. “He charmed you, he liked you. People have fallen in love over less.” 

“He was the most sincere creature I’d ever met,” she walked back to Kili’s body and began the long process of combing out his snarled hair. “Tell me more about him?” 

Ori braided Fili’s hair and told her about a young Kili on a rooftop. He caressed beloved locks for the last time and seeded them with rubies (Dis’ favorite, not Fili’s. Fili had no love for shining stones and would’ve wanted his mother marked instead of himself) remembering how the three of them had built a boat once out of discarded wood that sank and nearly drowned them. He anointed Fili’s forehead with fragrant oils and massaged it into his hands while reciting the tales of birthdays and solstice celebrations. At last he set the circlet of gold around his head and folded a sword into his hands as he told her of Kili’s first bow and arrow. 

“He’ll want those instead of a sword,” he said finally. He was done and the body before him looked utterly serene and regel in it’s finery. A true prince at last and he looked nothing like the Fili that he had known. He couldn’t say if that made it easier or harder. 

“Thank you,” she found the bow and tucked Kili’s fingers around it. “For everything.” 

“At your service,” he tipped his head to her. 

When she slipped away, after a brief kiss to Kili’s forehead, Ori performed the last rite on his own. This an elf had no place in hearing. In Kili’s ear, he whispered: 

“Gahad vano Mahal, ah prince.” _Go into the arms of Mahal, my prince._

Then to Fili, 

“Gahad vano Mahal, ah hegraebeorth.” 

He walked away from them and thought his part in their story had at last come to an end. 

He was young. He did not know that there were no such things as neat ending and clear cut beginnings. 

It took him weeks to notice that no one spoke of Fili. His grief was vast, but so was the work to be done. An army of dwarves were needed to count coin and evaluate the great gem piles. Ori kept the accounts, writing on what scraps could be found with inks he had to grind himself at a tremendous rate from inferior ingredients. The others of the company ebbed and flowed around him, pulled in all directions by Dain’s people and the work that needed to be done. 

He spoke with them and they shared the memories of Thorin like they were legends. They laughed sadly as they reminisced about Kili’s antics. Ori listened and added his own, waiting to speak of his beloved. But there was never a chance. No one mentioned his name. 

“Why?” He demanded at last, confronting his own brother, who looked bemused in the face of Ori’s anger. “Why does no one talk of Fili?” 

“They don’t?” Dori frowned. “Surely they do.” 

“They don’t. You don’t. It’s as if his name was already struck from memory!” 

“It’s carved in stone and stone doesn’t forget,” Dori clucked. “I think you’re overtired. Sleep awhile.” 

“There is too much to be done,” Ori sighed, but let Dori coax him to bed. 

He tried Balin, who only wrinkled up his forehead and said, 

“I grieve them all, lad. I can only tell you that to soothe you.”

Ori wondered if he was going a little mad. Was his grief painting pictures that did not exist? At last, he caught a moment with Bofur, who had found a bit of pipeweed that he offered gamely to share. They smoked it quietly and then Ori asked. 

“Of course they don’t,” Bofur tapped the ashes from his pipe. “They hardly knew him, did they? He rarely talked or even made eye contact with the rest of us.” 

“He talked all the time!” Ori protested. 

“Kili talked and Fili talked with him, for him or at him. There’s a difference. Kili was always reaching out, interested in those around him. He asked questions and chatted. Fili was a different sort. He kept his world very small. A true lion that one like his uncle.” 

“You said Kili was a wolf.” 

“That he was. But wolves are sociable creatures, aren’t they? Run in packs and all. Your Fili was a lion, mostly solitary and wary.” 

“That isn’t how I remember him,” Ori threw up his hands in frustration. “He was always talking with me.” 

“Good. Then you keep his memory, but don’t go fuming that the rest of us don’t see it. We loved him as much as we loved Kili, Ori, don’t doubt that, but we didn’t know him and that makes all the difference.” 

Keeping memories was his job, Ori thought as he walked away from Bofur. He went back by the legion of workers and to the set of rooms that Dori had claimed for them. The kitchen alone was larger than their entire apartment back home. In his room, Ori had tucked Kili’s letters beneath his pillow. 

He drew them out and turned the pages over. Blank space. The only blank paper that he hadn’t given over to the cause. With care, he took the best of his bad lot of ink and the sharpest quill. 

If no one else would remember Fili, then he would make sure that his thoughts were captured and held for all time. He wrote as small as he could to make the sheets last and the tiny runes smeared before his eyes until they threatened to lose all meaning. He trapped Fili on the page as best he could remember. 

He carried those pages for years. Years of clearing away rubble and restoring Erebor. Years of reconnecting with his brothers and rejoicing in their successes. Dori became a respected healer in his own right under Oin’s guidance and Nori’s questionable skills came to good use as a diplomat to the reestablished Dale. All of the original company prospered, revered among Dain’s folk as heros. When the archives were found at last, Ori was installed as their keeper almost immediately. He did his best, but the books had not fared as well as the gems and he often ended the day more saddened by the knowledge lost than buoyed by what he discovered. 

His sole confidente outside of family remained Bofur. Ori couldn’t help, but gravitate toward the person that Fili had tried to gift to him all those years ago. It helped that Bofur retained his sense of humor and his store of pipeweed, sharing them both freely with his young companion. 

It took Ori a painfully long time to realize that Bofur was unhappy. His friend carried a sort of resignation about him. At first, Ori thought perhaps it had to do with work. Instead of making his beloved toys, Bofur had become lead designer of the anti-siege weapons that dotted Erebor’s face. If there was another dragon attack, Bofur’s work would take care of it. 

“It’s a good thing,” Bofur agreed with a dark smile. “My legacy.”

“You could make toys again.” 

“For what children?” Bofur shrugged. “This is a place for fighters, who have no time for play.” 

“Then go home,” Ori suggested.

“Isn’t this meant to be home? If it isn’t, what was it all for?” 

Ori, who had often asked himself that same question, couldn’t answer it for either of them. Still, he knew something wasn’t right and he knew that there was at least one book that could shore up Erebor’s ailing library. 

“I don’t know. But I do know what might make us both feel better.” 

“Oh?” Bofur lifted an eyebrow. 

“Let’s take Mr. Baggins up on his offer. I could do with a cup of tea.” 

“We couldn’t,” Bofur protested though something in his posture had changed and a spark jumped into his grin. “We’re needed here and even if we weren’t, that’s hardly a journey to be taken lightly. Some of the dangers may be gone, but it would take more than the two of them to tackle the ones that remain.” 

“Let me take care of that. You pack us provisions and find us mounts. We’ll give plenty of notice. Your work can be carried out from plans and mine has reached an impasse anyway.” 

Dori begged him not to go, citing a million fears, but Nori only looked pensive, before nodding. 

“A change would do you good.”

“He’ll be out there! Without us!” Dori waved his hands wide. “What would Ma say?” 

“That we’d guarded him long enough,” Nori frowned. “Look closely. Our little brother isn’t a child any longer. Not even in years lived, if you won’t count our travels as having aged him.” 

“But if something were to happen to him,” Dori stared at Ori. “If-” 

“We’ve lived long enough on ifs.”

“You’ll write us in every town,” Dori ordered. 

“Of course,” Ori hugged him. 

He had to wait for the next part of his plan. It was hard to say when they would see her next though she seemed unable to stay away. She had not gone with Gandalf on his many trips to Lothlorien or Rivendell though he had offered. Instead, she lived wild, half-feral with it. She would appear at intervals in Erebor’s halls to use their baths and their beds for a day or two. Then she’d be gone again. Few dared speak to her or even desired to acknowledge her troublesome existence. 

Ori always said hello if he saw her and invited her to a meal. He recognized himself in her searching eyes and the way she sometimes half-turned as if she’d spied a familiar face out of the corner of vision. They had little to say to each other in the beginning, but she always accepted his offers and brought what meat to the table could be caught on the mountain even if she never ate it herself. 

Gradually they found neutral topics and could speak idly about slingshots, woodcraft or the strangeness of Men, who never seemed to know their own minds. When enough time had passed, she told him about her girlhood in exchange for more stoires of his own and those he’d shared it with. They found more alike than different, despite the years and culture separating them. 

They weren’t easy with each other, not by a long shot, but Ori thought she might agree.   
She next appeared a fortnight later, a bandage wrapped around her hand. 

“Would you like my brother to look at that?” He asked when she settled expectantly across from him at his work table. 

“It will take care of itself,” she unwrapped the bandage for him and showed off the fading bruise that must’ve meant broken fingers not long ago. “I was training the new regiment in Laketown and misjudged a blow.” 

“How goes the training?” 

“Badly,” she smiled wryly. “I am not made for teaching.” 

“How would you feel about some light guard work then?” 

“That depends on what I’m guarding.” 

“I’ve a journey to make with Bofur. We’re headed for the Shire, but we could use someone with us who is quick with an arrow.” 

“The Shire,” she frowned. “That’s where the little one was from. The halfling.” 

“Bilbo, yes. He’s holding something for me and Bofur was always fond of him. It will be good to be away from this place for a time.” 

“A vacation,” she ventured. 

“A what?” 

“A trip taken for pleasure. We indulge in them often.”

“Certainly not the dwarven way,” Ori chuckled. “Taking time off merely to suit yourself! My Ma would’ve had a fit.” 

“But you’re doing it.” 

“I suppose we all have to defy our parents after a time, even in death. Though with her lungs, she might make herself heard from Mahal’s halls if she’d a mind to try.”

Tauriel sat back in her chair with an easy laugh. It was one of those glimpses that made Ori think he knew why Kili had indulged in a flirtation with her. There was something wonderfully light and sharp about her. 

“When do we leave?” 

Their tiny expedition set out only a few weeks later as spring’s cool breezes gave way to the heat of summer. Tauriel found a stallion the color of fog that carried her even higher above them and often needed to stretch his legs with long runs. 

“I’m beginning to think she doesn’t like us much,” Bofur confided after she took off for the third time that morning. 

“Do you like her?” Ori stretched lazily. The heat and the placid gait of his pony made napping a constant temptation. 

“She’s an elf.” 

“Well noticed.” 

“None of that sass from you,” Bofur leaned over to flick him on the arm and Ori yelped. “I mean I don’t know what to think of her. If she were a dwarf lass, I’d say she was distant, but that’s an elvish sort of thing to be, isn’t it?” 

“No idea. I haven’t met a wide range. I like her though.” 

“Do you now?” 

“What’s that meant to mean?” 

“Nothing,” Bofur held up his hands. “You like whoever you want. I was only thinking that she reminds me of someone I knew once. Headstrong, keeps her own council, fondness for trouble, blunt and a deep laugh.” 

“Could describe almost everyone we know.” 

“Almost,” Bofur agreed. “If you want to be deliberately dense about it.” 

Now that Bofur pointed it out, Ori could make out what he meant. Tauriel could be a little like Fili, he supposed. If Fili had lived a good deal longer and wasn’t part of a pair. A more lonely Fili. Maybe that was what Kili had seen. He wished he’d asked when he’d had the chance. 

“I suppose it’s natural to like the same sorts of people.” 

“Would you try to bed her?” Bofur asked idly. 

“Are out of your mind?” Ori was startled out his lassitude. “That’d be like trying to mount the moon itself and just as absurd to look at.” 

“Just a thought. I’m wondering if you plan to let your bed go empty for the rest of your days.” 

“Not plan,” Ori frowned. “Can’t bring myself to bother.” 

“That’s unhealthy.” 

“We can’t all seduce Dain’s sister-son,” Ori teased. 

“I told you, he’s only after me. Not interested. He’s far too young.” 

“Only ten years younger than me.” 

“Important years those,” Bofur shook his head. “He’s got a bit of a big head about it anyway. Do him good to live with some rejection.” 

Tauriel swept back around, hair whipping into the wind. 

“Do dwarves eat truffles?” She called out. 

“We do when we can find them!” Bofur sat straighter on his horse. 

“Then we will have a good luncheon!” 

It was strange, taking that fateful trip in reverse. They were able to stay to the open roads this time and kept their mounts with ease. In all respects it was far less eventful and Ori was grateful for it. Tauriel proved an able gatherer as well as hunter, so they never went hungry and Bofur had a good memory for bawdy songs that broke Ori and Tauriel’s night time silences. When they reached Rivendell, Tauriel hesitated and for a moment, Ori thought she might bolt. 

Elrond himself came out to greet them as stately and cold as Ori remembered from their last visit. 

“Tauriel, cormamin lindua ele lle.” 

“Lle lakwenien?” She wrinkled her nose. 

“No, daughter of the woods. I would not jest.” 

“What’re they saying?” Bofur whispered. 

“Why would I know?” 

“He said his heart sang to see me again,” Tauriel huffed a laugh. “Which is unlikely.” 

“You are a brave fighter and a loyal soul, those are always welcome here. Your friends, on the other hand...” Elrond studied them. “Must promise to stay out of my fountain.” 

“We’re only two, my lord. Far harder to wreck havoc,” Bofur rocked a little on his heels, smiling. 

“Harder, but not impossible.” Elrond’s facade didn’t melt in the slightest, but Ori thought he could make out the faintest thread of amusement. 

They stayed in proper rooms this time. It was strange to be in a warm, comfortable bed and still exposed to the outdoors. It kept Ori from settling altogether. When he woke for good far too early, he went for a walk in the stately hallways until he found the fountain that they had bathed in. Feeling puckish, he washed his hair, face and hands in the flowing waters. 

Following the feeling, Ori ran his fingers through his soaked hair. It had grown long, out of the neat trimmings of childhood these past few years and he’d barely noticed. With the fountain’s reflection for guidence, he found a grown face. There should be braids to match.

He redid the front two braids, one for Dori, one for Nori with the knots of the professions proudly displayed. For his mother, he twisted his beard into a single braid instead of the two in the back. He was thinking of her now and it would do well to honor her. The rest, he hesitated upon and in the end, bound it into one long braid. 

Bound, but not married. As he could not do for Fili and Kili without raising question. He could practically see them now, naked and laughing as they climbed to the top of the fountain, racing each other. 

He was older now than they had been then. Older than Fili would ever be. 

The trees whispered among each other. Some of the leaves were no longer such a vivid green. There were yellows sneaking in and oranges. One particularly brilliant yellow one flew off it’s branch to sweep by his feet. Ori picked it up and twirled it. 

“Autumn is coming to us,” Tauriel folded her legs on the lip of the fountain. “Can you make it back to the Shire on your own?” 

“You’re not coming?” 

“I talked for a long time with Elrond. He has offered me a position here.” 

“And you said yes.” 

“I said maybe,” she dipped her hand into the fountain. “I need to find a place again. If not here, then somewhere else among my people. But I will not abandon you. Come back this way when you wish to return home and I will guard you on the way back.” 

“I’ll miss you.” 

“Will you?” Her eyes widened. “Why?” 

“I don’t have many friends. My own fault. It’ll be hard to go back and know I have one less there.” 

“A friend,” she tilted a head, studying his new braids and he explained them in a rush. “What would you give me then? If I were a dwarf woman?” 

“Three braids all on the left side,” he said, perhaps too quickly, but it was an idle thought he’d played with more than once. “Experienced warrior, a leader. Unbound on the right because right now you don’t lead anyone.“

“What about my marriageable state?” 

“Women don’t bother with that. For men, it’s a matter of pride to be married. For women, it’s having children if they desire them.” 

“And if I told you I was a mother?” 

“Are you?” 

She looked away. 

“Children are harder for us than you. I’m not even sure I want them. What kind of mother would I be? One who holds a weapon easier than a baby?”

“You’d be much like Fili and Kili’s ma and I always thought she did well.” 

“I suppose she did at that.” 

The fountain burbled on and the leaves trembled. Ori shivered in the sunlight. 

They left her behind in Rivendell with three braids plaited on the left side of her head, swept out of her eyes. The hike wasn’t long after that and Ori noticed Bofur sitting straighter and smiling wider as the hills gentled. They saw their first hobbit not long after that, tilling a field. He paused to watch them ride by. 

“It seems a lifetime ago,” Bofur said idly. “We came in from the other direction, by Bree, I think the town is called.” 

“So did we. Stopped the night in a nice enough inn. Something Pony, maybe?” 

The road curved and they followed it. Wherever they went, the hobbits all stopped to watch them. The children were bolder about it and one of them shouted out, 

“Are you looking for Mr. Baggins?” 

“Aye, lad,” Bofur leaned down and pulled a copper coin from the boy’s ear. “I’ve another for you if you lead the way.” 

“Yes, sir!” 

The boy scampered on ahead and the others joined him. They arrived at the gate flanked by such a crowd of children that Bofur had to do many tricks to please them.   
He looked as he had the day Ori met him. It was worth the last minute pause to see it. 

Something itched at the back of Ori’s neck and he turned to see the door of Bag End opening a crack and the hint of a plum waistcoat showing through. 

“Oi!” He got up on his tiptoes and waved both his hands. “Bilbo Baggins!” 

“Is that...” the door widened and the small face of their burglar was revealed. He had aged only a very little, but more than any other member of the company. It looked well on him. “Bless my buttons! Ori is that you?” 

“At your service,” he bowed and by the time he straightened, he found his arms full of hobbit. 

“I thought none of you would ever come. I was about to pack my bags and come to you instead.” 

“We would’ve welcomed you,” Ori laughed. “You look well.” 

“You look grown,” Bilbo studied him. “Yes, very grown indeed.” 

“And me? How do I look?” Bofur finally escaped from the hoard. There was the slightest of tremors in his hands and Ori sucked in a breath in understanding. 

“Bofur,” Bilbo stepped away from Ori, eyes wide. “You. You look better than memory.” 

“I suppose that compliment depends on the memory you mean.” 

The two of them stared at each other. 

“Bofur,” Ori said carefully. “Did you come all this way to take this hobbit to bed? Because if you did and now you’re just going to stand there like a gaping fish, I will slap you.” 

Bofur looked slapped already, glaring at Ori with an intense heat. 

“Oh, thank the stars,” Bilbo let out a gusty sigh. “I thought I was mistaken. You took so very long in getting here, my dear.” 

After that, Ori looked politely away. A little longer after that, he walked into Bag End on his own. They would be distracted long enough for him to do his retrieving. The lovely hole still smelled deliciously of honey and strong beer. The study was only more cluttered and riddled with odd piles, some of them with things Ori recognized from their journey. It took him a moment to orient himself and for a heart pounding second, he thought it might be gone. 

No. There. 

He crouched and there, behind the dusty books, was a slightly less dusty volume. With delicacy, he pulled it out and as soon as it was free, he hugged it to his chest. 

“Hello,” he kissed the binding. “You’ve missed a lot.” 

The book rattled. With a sound that was half-laugh, half-sob, he shook it gently until the locket fell from the binding. It was a little tarnished from the years hidden away, but then again, so was he. 

Carefully, he caught the latch with his thumbnail and flicked it open. 

One thin gold braid nestled in a perfect circle shone back at him as brilliant as the day he’d stolen it. He closed it up fast, not daring to let the air in. The chain slipped easily back around his neck, the locket once more snug against his heart that beat to the only rhythm it could recall.

Fili. Fili. Fili. 

He was used to the tears by now which visited like unwelcome relatives and had learned to let them come and go as they pleased. When the worst of it had cleared, he wiped his sleeve over his face. There were pages he had always meant to join with the Annal. Pages filled with desperate memoires. Holding that old staid tome again though, he knew that it was not meant to be. The Annal was for births, deaths, marriages and legends. It was for larger than life stories, not little boys with bags of raisins and honey buns. 

He could do as he had done and carry the precious pages with him back to Erebor. He could unfold them on more nights than not, reopening the wound that refused to heal. 

“Ridiculous child,” he tutted to himself. 

They would be at Bag End for awhile, in any case. He could retrieve them if he changed his mind. With care he took out Kili’s letters, his memories spidery and tense on the back. The edges of the paper were tender and the folds threatening to come undone after so many rereadings. He slid them into the hiding spot that had held his secrets for so long. 

Perhaps they would remain there for generations, Ori thought with some satisfaction. After all, it seemed that the lordly hobbits of Bag End had no need for simple books about flowers.


	4. Epilogue: Letter found tucked in the back cover of the Red Book with other Misc. Correspondence

To our dear Sam, 

I’m sorry this reply is so very late in coming, our travels have made it hard for letters to catch up with us. That we finally received yours at all you can, as always, blame on our mutual dwarfen friend. After surviving so many hardships and battles without a scratch, Gimli has contrived to break his fool arm while dancing a jig at his parent’s anniversary dinner. Do not ask me how as I was not so privileged as to witness this event, but was told that a very fiendish broomstick was involved. 

He is beside me now and interrupting my concentration to add in his own thoughts on these matters or anything else that comes into his head. His mother keeps preparing him pain draughts that might numb even my thoughts. You would laugh to see how coddled he is here, not at all the brave grown warrior we are used to, but beloved child to indulgent relatives. 

We were both gladdened to hear of the birth of your Hamfast, if a little bewildered. No elf or dwarf has ever boasted seven children though both would count that as a treasure beyond any measure. Your Rosie must truly be extraordinary. One of these days we shall travel in your direction and meet her. 

It does not surprise me that Pippin has grown into a fine leader though I admit to ignorance on what the title of Thain means. Is it a kind of lord? Does he still steal fruits from his own kitchens when he thinks no one is looking? I like to remember him that way. 

We have indeed lately seen Aragorn, who like you is recently a father though only of one boy. A fine healthy son, who’s greatest pleasure was to tug at Gimli’s beard and ride on his shoulder to dinner. Arwen tendered a volume on rare seeds for your book that I will enclose. 

Gimli is telling me not to carry on with pleasantries as what you really wish to know is about the odd papers you found in Bilbo’s studies. He wrote out a translation which follows this letter and he has allowed me to read it. 

I do not know what to say about them. The author is known to you and I only through Gimli’s sorrow at his discovery. Do you remember Moria or have other sorrows and dangers blotted it out? There was a tomb there for the one known as Balin and at it’s foot a skeleton clutching a great book. That poor soul was Ori and it was he who wrote the pages you found. Gimli suspects they were meant to be joined with that ill fated book, the Annal of Erebor and Moria, which is now lost to dwarfkind. Your pages are all the remain of his work. 

The stories are sweet and simple enough, but the writing on the opposite side pulled Gimli’s face into a dreadful frown. He never met Ori, but he knew something of Kili as a distant cousin. Do you recall the name? Gimli thought you might from Bilbo's stories. It is Kili’s words that are more clearly damning and libel to wound if they were too widely known. 

The remainders of Thorin Oakenshield’s company live on in these halls and despite a rocky start, I have made amends for past slights and they welcome me now as Gimli’s companion. One of them even has some fond memories of a little Samwise! Do you remember a dwarf with a great black mustache? Bofur says he recalls a curious, but shy wee one that only dared come close when he told stories of elves, even if they weren’t very flattering. 

I can confide in you that it does me much good to rest in these halls. My own people are leaving me behind, one by one. Reading these letters put me in mind of an old friend with whom I fell out with. When I reached out to discover what had become of her, I found my opportunity to mend the tear between us had passed me by. Tauriel has gone on to the Grey Havens along with my father and so many more of my kin. 

It is the greatest irony that I should find myself most at home now with a dwarf. 

But I’ve wandered from my point and Gimli is glaring at me as if he knows. Among those I’ve come to befriend are an adept healer and a masterful diplomat though both claim retirement. These are Dori and Nori, those other sons of Ofrai. There was no small argument between Gimli and I if those two at least should not know of this discovery. I thought that some scrap of their brother would be more wanted than whatever potential hurt must lie there. Not to mention, it was clearly Ori’s desire that the pages be read so that the memory of his beloved be preserved. 

Gimli, as ever, cut quicker to the truth. Removing the insults to my person, he said that the softening of our memories of the dead are a kindness. Why tarnish what they can recall by pouring over the journal of their brother in his most distraught moments? Or worse, let the princes’ own mother, who still stands at the head of the dais on feasting days with her long white hair in a mourner's braids, lose entirely the sweetness of the memory of two heroic sons? Let their names stand for loyalty and bravery instead of scandal. Let their secrets remain locked with them in the Vault.

We have decided that it is best to hide these letters in plain sight in the library here in Erebor. The current scribe is an incurious fellow, who will not touch old volumes. I will find some appropriate book on flowers, if I can, and slip them there. It seems only fitting. It's curious that story of lords and meadows. It is one often taught to elven children as well, but Gimli claims it as a dwarf tale. Perhaps it was both once and I like that. An dwarven lord of Yesterday and an elven lord of Tomorrow finally making amends in Today's meadow. 

I hope you don’t mind the fate of your discovery and that you’ll find the translation as interesting as we did. Perhaps, you can put some of it in that red book of yours as you see fit. 

Also, Gimli’s mother has fostered sweets on me to send on to your children. They’re boiled hard candies, very sweet, but warn your little ones not to bite on them. Dwarven children have harder jaws than hobbits and elves.

Yours in Fellowship, 

Legolas Greenleaf

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you for reading this 25k angry reaction to BotFA! I found as I finished there were other things I wanted to pursue in this verse. You will notice that this story is now part of a series. Hope you'll stick around to see who else gets their say. I can promise at least Ofrai, Bofur and Dori. 
> 
> You can find me on Tumblr if you so desire as dragonmuse. I often take prompt requests there.


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